Better Pork - February 2005
BEHIND THE LINES
by ROBERT IRWINA cashier at a government run liquor store in this province makes $21.80 an hour or $43,076 a year, notes a columnist in the Ottawa Citizen. That's almost double what a general swine worker gets, according to a recent survey conducted by Ridgetown College economists.
The cashier's job is nice work if you can get it. But there are only so many liquor store positions in Ontario, so perhaps a more apt comparison is construction, where there are a lot more such jobs and where wages are also likely better than in a hog barn.
Labour didn't start out to be a theme in this month's issue; it just turned out that way. We looked at commercial-sized sow farms that are striving towards that seemingly unreachable goal of 30 pigs weaned per sow per year. We found one such farmer -- he farms in Denmark, not in Ontario - and some other farmers who are aiming at that lofty target.
It turns out that labour is a key to achieving those goals, and that's not unskilled labour either. Rather, the 30 pigs per sow goal is achieved by directing skilled and well-managed labour towards specific tasks, and throwing away some old and apparently outdated concepts about how to help the female half of the breeding stock achieve their productive potential.
At the end of the day, it's the returns from the marketplace that determine an industry's ability to pay competitive wages. And in Ontario those returns, or at least Ontario Pork's authority to negotiate them, is once again being challenged. This time, however, it's not the largest large packers leading the charge, although it's no secret where the largest packers stand. Progressive Pork Producers Co-operative Inc., an entity that ironically grew out of an Ontario Pork meeting in the mid 1980s, wants an exemption from provincial legislation that gives the producer-run pork board authority over contracting of hogs.
We received word at press time (Jan 14) that the Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs Appeal Tribunal has ruled against a group including 3P in another challenge to Ontario Pork's authority. In the Dec. 2004 issue of Better Pork we described the objections of 3P, Elite Swine, Cold Springs Farm Limited, Selves Farms Limited, and Synergy Services Inc., to Ontario Pork's Interim Trade Action Defense Fee of $0.80 per market hog. The fee was established last spring to cover the estimated $4.4 million cost for Ontario's defense against the two trade actions launched by the United States. In Sept. Ontario Pork was forced to stop collecting the fee while the matter was before the tribunal. Collection of the fee is scheduled to resume by the time you read this.BP
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The Plateau: Thamesville weaner producer sets his sights on 30 pigs per sow
Two years ago, things looked bleak for Dan Cryderman's operation. But with a new barn up and running, and new employees to staff it, the prospects for reaching the elusive 30-pig goal are looking betterby DON STONEMAN
Thamesville area producer Dan Cryderman thinks the lofty benchmark of 30 weaned pigs per sow is within his reach.Records from Cryderman's two-year-old, 1,500-sow farrowing barn show that production is just shy of 28 pigs per sow for the 12 months ending Nov 30, 2004, and slightly higher for the most recent three months. He has come a long way since stocking the barn two years ago.
In late 2002, prospects looked bleak. Production per sow was about 50 per cent of what it should have been. Cryderman was unhappy with the output and the two employees soon quit.
Dan Cryderman says he and his father acted as general contractors for this barn. He describes the experience as a "nightmare" as construction fell behind schedule in mid-summer. By the late fall of 2002, pigs were being put in pens in one end of the barn because construction was still under way on the other end. The task was daunting as the Crydermans also cash crop about 650 acres north of Thamesville and Dan's father John runs his own 900-sow operation.
But with three new employees hired in the spring of 2003, the situation has turned around. Production per sow over the last 12 months is a shade under 28 piglets, according to their records kept on PigChamp management software and for the last quarter it hit 28.2. "Every quarter it gets a little bit better," Cryderman says, noting that the figure might actually be higher if "lost sows" that have long since been culled were tracked down and eliminated from the record-keeping system. Cryderman admits he has been concentrating more on maximizing production per sow and cash flow rather than on tidying up loose ends in the records.
Cryderman also notes that he apparently isn't doing all that he could in his barn to increase production. At least, he isn't doing everything according to the formula laid down by Henrik Jensen of Denmark, who has succeeded in topping 30 pigs per sow and has been touring across Canada on behalf of Danbred.
Cryderman credits new, diligent, skilled workers in the barn with the current success.
When the startup was going wrong, Cryderman went looking for new employees and found his first choice in barn manager Jeff Schieman. Schieman was working for Premium Pork in Lucan, but wanted to move back to the Thamesville area to raise his young family where he grew up. At the Crydermans, he works in two barns, spending most of his time now in Dan's father's barn.
Schieman brought some piglet raising techniques with him that Cryderman was glad to introduce. Cryderman thinks he picked up those techniques from the Geneticporc system that Premium was using. They included fostering piglets of high-producing sows onto other sows, as well as deliberately lengthening the lactation period of gilts by weaning their pigs, and replacing them with 15 large (and hungry) piglets from another sow. The purpose behind this is to train the gilts in their first lactation to produce lots of milk for a long time. This also encourages them to produce more piglets. These techniques are the same ones touted by Henrik Jensen.
Schieman is now trying to bring up production in the barn of Dan Cryderman's father, who uses the same breeding stock base. Production is 24-25 piglets per sow/year. The old barn is not as nice a facility, Dan says. On the other hand, it's paid for, and Dan's barn is not, so he is working harder to maximize the output.
Health status of pigs on the Cryderman farms is "nothing special," Dan Cryderman says. Pigs are vaccinated for PRRS and are mycoplasma-positive. "We're in a pig dense area," he explains, adding that Stratford-based herd health practitioner Doug MacDougald told them they were unlikely to stay disease-free even if they went through the financially painful and debilitating process of depopulating and repopulating the barns.
The 1,500-sow barn was stocked with Genex pigs at startup and then Cryderman began bringing in Danbred pigs, though he stresses that he has nothing against Genex genetics. "I think they are a very good animal."
Now he is producing his own gilts, using semen from Danbred's unit at Varna (the former Shamrock facility). Pigs produced for commercial sale are bred to semen from Total Swine Genetics.
So what does Cryderman do that is the same as Jensen in Denmark? He raises gilts to about 220 days before breeding, which is likely the same as Denmark where gilts weigh 350 pounds before their first insemination. Cryderman notes that the Premium Pork production formula calls for even heavier gilts, and that "really good selecting" for sound feet and legs is necessary. He adds that both Genex and Danbred sows are known for good feet and legs.
Raising bigger gilts seems to be necessary in order to make fostering work. The fostering concept ins't new to sow managers. "There are so many terms for fostering," Cryderman says. "The guys here call it 'cascading.'" Jensen's techniques are more intensive than those used by most Ontario producers. Pigs are moved when they are 15 days old. When litters are born, all sows have 12 to 13 piglets on them. This gets the sow milking well. Then, starting day one to day three, one or perhaps two, but no more, are taken off the sow.
"I used to take her down to nine or 10 pigs," Cryderman says.
On MacDougald's advice, all sows are fed as if they were gilts - "a very dense ration," Cryderman says. Master Feeds provides the sow ration, which is called PP1 (Premium Parity 1), from its Stratford plant. Usually barn managers aim to lose no more than one to two millimetres of back fat when a sow is lactating.
The ration also contains SP 250, sulphamethazine and penicillin, a controversial product in pig-raising circles. Cryderman thinks it helps a sow's uterus to heal after birthing. The cost is reasonable and the product is effective, but the feeding industry wants to phase it out, Cryderman says, for fear that it will contaminate feeder pig rations.
Jeff Green came to work at Cryderman's farm at the end of April, 2003. Jeff figures that probably 80 per cent of sows are mated and in pig in three services.
A group of producers at Woodstock buys Cryderman's weaners and Total Swine Genetics is their preference as a semen provider. "We are so lucky in Ontario. There is so much competition for semen providers," Cryderman says.
If sows don't have good numbers for litter three, they likely aren't going to improve so they are culled. Some sows that aren't coming into heat get PG-600 to induce cycling. Both Cryderman and Green think that 30 pigs per sow are possible with more management fine-tuning. For example, the technique of extending lactation length to 30-35 days that Jensen described has yet to be adopted. Lactations are extended to 25 days only, with sows being weaned of pigs at days 16-22, post-partum. First, says Cryderman, they need to get to "a stable parity status." There are many sows now in parity four. When there is more of a parity mix, he will aim to extend lactation length. Jeff Green sees that as a challenge. It may require moving pigs twice more to get gilt lactation that long. "That is a lot of moving," he says.
Sows are fed three times a day with automated feeders -- at 7 a.m., noon and again at 7 p.m. Water is added to the feed to increase its palatability. With automated feeding, "you can focus on details," Cryderman says, whereas with hand-feeding "you are pooped," and other jobs may not be handled consistently.
One of the features of this barn is an overflow nursery room. The largest pigs are put there "if we have a really good 'born-alive' that week," Cryderman says. There is room for 120-130 pigs in that room and more if a floor area is used with additional heater.
Can a farrow-to-finish operator with 200 sows working without help hope to raise 28-30 pigs per sow? Cryderman thinks it isn't a realistic goal.
"We have one guy just watching farrowing," he says. When a single operator is working on another aspect of an operation, stillbirths can get away.
"But I have high overhead and labour costs," he allows, so there are extra costs along with the high pig output. To get high weaned pig numbers, a producer has to spend money.BP
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back Desert Pete's lesson for the pork industry
"Prime the pump for the next person" is a motto that applies to all of us in the pork industry, just as much as it does to travellers in the desert
by RICHARD SMELSKI
The story goes that Desert Pete dug wells through the desert. When the traveller comes upon Desert Pete's well, hot, dirty and desperate for water, there's a note that reads, "Prime the pump with the jar of water beside the well. Use all the water in the jar and remember to fill the jar again for the next person."Farmers, more than anyone, know the need to "prime the pump" before getting something, and they also know the feeling of pouring out the last drop from the jar to prime, in anticipation of the pump and well working! One need not recall the stress and anticipation of the work -- pumping-- before one gets water. Farmers also know the rewards -- the longer and harder you pump without stopping, the better and cooler the water you get.
I believe this story relates very well to the challenges and successes in the pork industry. This analogy depicts the pork industry in four ways.
First, you have to work hard and with full commitment before receiving any rewards. The corn you plant can go to market two years later, in the pigs you produce. That's a lot of priming.
Pork producers know that the results you achieve are directly related to the continuous effort you put into the job. You cannot let up for one minute, just like priming a pump, or you have to start all over again. You ease up on heat checks, biosecurity, observation of individual animals, or market price opportunities and you can lose a year's efforts. The need for hard work, discipline and attention to detail is an engrained principle within the industry that the outside observer may never see or appreciate.
Secondly, there is a lot of trust in the chain. If someone intentionally or unintentionally did not leave some water to prime the pump, then the chain stops. If the suppliers, packers and supermarkets, are not enjoying a profit from pork production, they will simply not participate. The chain does not start in the barn -- it starts long before you and continues long after your role is finished. The trust has to be maintained because, regardless of paper contracts, the belief has to be there. To be a pork producer, one needs to have the trust that the product contributes a valuable service and your counterparts need to have the same trust and belief in the value chain.
Thirdly there are no guarantees. You may not obtain any water from no fault of the person in front or behind you. You make your guarantees by picking your route and partners and, even then, the pump might break down or the well run dry. If there is too much pork for the chain to peddle, then no one wants the pork you produced, whatever the guarantees.
Can you guarantee two tonnes of pork (exactly) on July 21, 62 per cent lean and 2.2 per cent intramuscular fat? If you say "pay me first," you do not believe in priming the pump before you get water. It's like wanting a stove to give you heat before you put wood into it. The guarantees are in quantitative and qualitative numbers. To date, we have worked on quantity; now we need to verify our quantitative numbers.
Lastly, maintain a competitive advantage. Desert Pete might have been successful in the 1920s, but today you locate water with GPS, seismic counters, flashy marketing signage, and by internet communication all in an environmentally-friendly fashion. You will not, nor can you, produce pork the way you did back then.
What is your competitive advantage over a pork producer in Brazil or Spain? How will you cope with biotechnology, traceability, disease management, labour relations and take advantage of a host of future opportunities? The technology is advancing rapidly, but the principles of Desert Pete remain the same. BP
Richard Smelski is general manager of Ontario Swine Improvement Inc. and a former Ontario government swine specialist.
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back Are you ready to apply for Nutrient Management financial assistance?
The long awaited incentive program to help large livestock operators comply with the Nutrient Management Act is here and deadlines are looming. Now is the time to start planning needed measures and applying for suitable assistance for swine operations?by MURRAY BLACKIE
With the official announcement of program delivery details for Nutrient Management Act funding, operators can now begin the process of planning needed measures and applying for assistance. It is not my intent to summarize the program, but rather to comment on the steps and deadlines involved in accessing this program.The $20 million (minus administration costs) in the program will be available to an estimated 1,200 large livestock operations, of which an estimated 80 per cent are swine or beef operations. The program will be available to existing operations of 300 Nutrient Units (e.g. 1,800 feeder hogs or 750 sows with weaners) or larger and those using aerial or high trajectory spray irrigation for liquid manure spreading so they can change their equipment to acceptable alternatives.
Eligible projects generally fall into categories of manure management, erosion control, buffer strips, well management and planning. In this column, I will discuss manure management projects.
Larger swine operations using liquid manure may be interested in:
Although one might assume that newly established or recently enlarged swine operations that were subject to local Nutrient Management by-laws already have adequate storage, there will still be many existing operations with less than 240 days of storage and needing assistance in improving their storage. Site-specific conditions, such as climate or soil conditions and cropping practices, may justify having less than 240 days or may lead a nutrient management plan (NMP) to recommend more than 240 days storage. If the NMP supports storage of greater than 240 days, the Nutrient Management Financial Assistance Program can fund the additional storage, up to 400 days, on a pro-rated basis.
- Enlarging or improving manure storage and monitoring equipment;
- Adopting treatment technologies;
- Reducing manure volume generated;
- Modifying application equipment to reduce odour.
Liquid manure storage and handling projects offer the highest incentive potential at a rate of 45 per cent grant to a maximum of $45,000.
Funding of manure treatment technologies such as solid separation or composting of manure and deadstock offers the opportunity to add these tools to your manure management tool chest. The need for an extended land base and concerns over the liabilities arising from manure application and spills make treatment worth consideration, and assistance to a maximum of $30,000 at a rate of 45 per cent may be what is needed to encourage more operators to give one or more of these technologies a try.
Steps taken in the barn to reduce water use and, in turn, manure volumes needing storage and management have always made sense. They also are funded at a rate of 45 per cent to a maximum of $30,000.
Modifications to manure application equipment are being funded at a rate of 45 per cent to a maximum of $15,000. This funding is intended to assist in the replacement of high trajectory spray irrigation equipment and the conversion of other existing equipment into more environmentally safe equipment which facilitates direct injection and pre-tillage. This category also includes application rate monitors or sensors.
If you are planning to go ahead with a manure management project or any other eligible project, remember that the first deadline of Mar. 31, 2005, is fast approaching. Nutrient management strategies (NMSs) and NMPs for manure storage projects must be submitted to the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and Food (OMAF) for approval by the end of March and actual application forms are due by July 1. Once you have your conditional approval from the Ontario Soil and Crop Association (OSCIA), you can finalize plans. With final approval, you can finish the projects and submit the claim by Dec. 31, 2005.
Don't forget that you will have to complete the Third Edition Environmental Farm Plan and produce an acceptable action plan before a cheque will be issued.
The process seems straightforward enough, but it does raise some questions.
For information on eligible items, deadlines, funding limits and rates, please e-mail the OSCIA website at oscia@ontariosoilcrop.org. or phone 1-800-265-9751. For questions or clarifications about the NM Act Regulation, call 1-866-242-4460 or refer to the OMAF website, www.gov.on.ca/omaf. With a Mar. 31 deadline looming for NMS and NMP submissions to OMAF, the next two months seem destined to be hectic, as will the rest of the year. Good luck.BP
- Will there be enough time?
- Will there be enough money?
- Will there be enough consultants?
- Will there be enough training venues for those preparing NMPs and NMSs?
- Will there be enough OSCIA staff?
- Will there be enough OMAF approvals staff?
- Will the federal government finalize additional funding for this program and give some funding to farmers smaller than 300 Nutrient Units?
Murray Blackie is the former agricultural specialist with the Ministry of the Environment and is now a consultant, expert witness and writer on agro-environmental issues.
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back Stretching farrow-to-finish to encompass the 'Danish way'
The Bloxsidges of Holbrook see their way to adopting some of the techniques pioneered by Danish producer Henrik Jensen. But they are finding that the idea of weaning a gilt of her piglets and replacing them with 13 large, hungry pigs is hard to embraceby DON STONEMAN
Can traditional Ontario farrow-to-finish operations be stretched to encompass top Danish producer Henrik Jensen's innovative pig production techniques?Jim and Hallie Bloxsidge, who farm near Holbrook, south of Woodstock, are willing to try. They finish all of the production from 1,600 sows on homemade feed in three of their own barns and at a contract finisher, and ship about 35,000 heavy pigs a year to a niche market in Indiana.
Annual weaned pig production is a respectable 25 pigs per sow, but Jim Bloxsidge sees potential to reduce pre-weaning mortality and produce a couple more live pigs per sow by adopting some of the techniques espoused by Jensen, the featured speaker at a breeder meeting in Stratford in December.
Bloxsidge thinks this can be achieved by putting more labour into his farrowing barn, but he admits that some of Jensen's techniques, particularly those of highly intensive cross-fostering of pigs onto gilts, run counter to 30 years of pork production experience. The idea of weaning a gilt of her piglets and replacing them with 13 large, hungry pigs to extend her lactation to 35 days is hard to embrace.
"We always believed in putting nine or 10 on a gilt.....we didn't want to stress her too much. The idea of putting 13 (pigs) on a gilt blew my mind," Bloxsidge says.
He says he wasn't the only producer at the meeting who felt that way, noting incredulous faces around the room when Jensen was talking and skeptics thinking, "No way this would work."
GILTS BARROWS Start 42.0 kg 42.3 End 99.1 kg 100.9 kg Days 55 55 ADG 1038 g 1065 g FCR 2.4 2.34 Cost/kg 52.1 c 51.0 c Results are on 900 animals. Nevertheless, as soon as the Bloxsidges got home from the meeting they directed some of their gilts towards a cross-fostering program. On some gilts, piglet numbers were reduced to 10 or 11 from 13 because the gilts were losing body condition fast. "Some gilts will do it and some gilts won't," says Hallie, who handles the paperwork at Biloxy Farms Inc. and relieves the farrowing barn supervisor on weekends and holidays.
"You look at the gilts where we have been putting a second litter on them. I think they are doing remarkably well," Hallie says. She warns, though, that "if the odd gilt goes in undersized, she is not going to grow."
Henrik Jensen, of course, espoused feeding gilts to a heavier weight before breeding and the Bloxsidges have some experience with breeding heavier gilts and are enthusiastic about the potential for extra production there. At one point last year, they had a gilt surplus and they fed some of them to a higher weight before fitting them into the breeding system. "When they farrowed, it was a dream," Jim Bloxsidge says. Each gilt produced between 13 and 20 live piglets. "The bigger gilts were producing like sows," he recalls.
All of their sows are bred with Danbred semen, both for gilt production and for market pigs.
The Bloxsidges have been shipping heavy pigs to the United States for many years. Then he switched to markets in Ontario to reduce trucking costs. About a year ago, his heavy pig buyer in Ontario, who wanted pigs that dressed at 115 kilograms, went out of business and Jim found a new customer, a Tyson plant 400 miles away in southern Indiana.
Jim and Hallie Bloxsidge have 10 employees. Their operation makes feed from 400 acres of its own corn and a lot of purchased crop besides. "It keeps us going," Jim says. Bloxsidge has been doing his own nutrient management work for a number of years and has been meeting requirements well ahead of the current laws, but he's hired a local consultant to handle that as the nutrient management rules get more complex.
Feeding pigs to get them to the heavy weight that Tyson wants hasn't been a problem. These pigs don't seem to get fatter; they just keep growing, Bloxsidge says. He is feeding a very high-energy home-made ration, with five per cent extra fat, as suggested by Jim Reid, the representative for Kenpal, the Centralia-based premix maker.
These pigs don't get to taste a finisher ration. "They stay on a grower 2 ration to market weight, Bloxsidge says. The pigs are going to market carrying 0.78 to 0.82 inches of back fat, equivalent to 20 millimetres.
While it appears to be counterintuitive, bumping up the fat in the diet (increasing energy) reduced back fat by about two millimetres on hogs of the same weight. It seems that the balance between energy and fat makes for a more digestible feed. The ration is balanced for five amino acids including lysine.BP
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