Boars prove to be best, says Andrew McCrea
Sometimes something can stare you in the face for a long time and you don’t even notice. This was the feeling I had when I attended the NI pig research event at AFBI Hillsborough.
One of the research papers was on heavy slaughter weights, specifically 120kg liveweight. The research farm at Hillsborough has installed a special feeder, which can give accurate feed conversion rates for individual pigs. The findings showed a shocking difference between pig performance. The best pigs, sent for slaughter on week one, achieved an excellent 2.2FCR and the worst pigs, sent on week three, a poor 3.2FCR. The conclusions from the report highlights the need to send penmates over a two-week period as any pigs left for the third week are not cost efficient.
So, how can I identify those pigs on my farm that have a good FCR and take these pigs to heavier weights? Well I can’t, but an interesting observation from the results showed the best FCR pigs were all boars and the worst were gilts, with the average being a mixture.
Therefore I can assume boars are more efficient in general than gilts. “I knew that,” I hear you cry. Why is it only now I am acting on this knowledge – selling boars heavier and gilts lighter, therefore potentially producing meat more efficiently.
I am very disappointed and concerned of the news that Vion UK is up for sale and hope a buyer can be found asap. With a 13,000 workforce and half the country supplying them, surely Vion is too big to let collapse. Isn’t it?
Andrew McCrea farms a 740-sow birth-to-bacon business and 150 beef cattle on 37ha. The pig business is a sow and weaner farm with four contract finishers. He produces 18,000 pigs a year to the British Quality-assured Red Tractor standard. Andrew is a DARD Focus Farmer and was 2010 Farmers Weekly Pig Farmer of the Year
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