Farmer Focus: Feed change lifts pig conception rate by 23%

Back in September, I explained we were experiencing poor parity two conceptions compared to other parities. Following expert advice, we entered a new feed plan into Velos (Nedap’s platform).

This feed plan has been used for just second parity animals while gilts have their own plan during gestation and all other parities remain on the original feed plan they were on.

Parity two (P2) conceptions have lifted from 69% to 96%. Admittedly, this is across fewer days due to a shorter timeframe, but the results look good, so far.

See also: Advice for selecting and managing gilts up to service

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Jack Bosworth

Livestock Farmer Focus writer Essex pig farmer Jack Bosworth farms 263ha of arable and a 540-sow farrow-to-finish operation in partnership with his family. About 60% of pigs are finished at home and 150 are sent to a farm in Norfolk to finish on a bed and breakfast contract.

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We have done this by changing the feedplan and offering a higher quantity of feed to the sows earlier.

Under the original feed plan, parity three sows and above were fed 2.8kg/day up until 50 days after service.

We then dropped to 2.6kg/day for 35 days. At days 85-103 post service, sows received 3.2kg/day, followed by a slight decrease to 3kg for four days and then 2.8kg before being moved to a farrowing place.

The new plan started on 5 September and has seen P2 sows offered up to 3.2kg/day for the first eight days post service.

Days 8-85 after insemination sees a slight reduction to 2.9 kg/day, followed by 3.1kg/day up until 100 days after service. Feed rate then lifts to 3kg/day until relocation to the farrowing place.

This gives P2s about 20kg (6%) more feed over their gestation period, but the data we have so far suggests it is having a massive impact on results at scanning.

On both plans, sows are fed our home-milled and mixed “dry sow” meal, which has cost £256.45/t on average from January to November of this year.

This is way up from the £218.30/t at the beginning of this year, before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In other words, giving the P2s a bit more feed costs just over £5 a pig.

I don’t like to speak too soon, but I do like to be optimistic – it looks like we are heading in the right direction.

Thanks to both Alex and Zoe on our team for their continuing determination and hard work at trying to get conception rates back where we need them to be.