This summer, Klocke Farms and PigEasy were fortunate to add
a couple members to the team. Their involvement with PigEasy varies, but as
with everyone else in our operation, they are a part of just about everything.
Welcome to PigEasy and Klocke Farms, Ben and
Mitch!
Ben Klocke and Mitch Tiefenthaler began working for Klocke Farms and PigEasy this summer.
Ben
No, this is not my brother Ben that I’m talking about here,
and yes, there have been some confusing moments.
Ben Klocke (the other Ben Klocke in Carroll County!) started
working with Klocke Farms in July.
We knew early on that one of the Bens would
need a nickname. After much deliberation, Ben Klocke (new Ben Klocke) accepted
the nickname of “FJ”. Can anyone guess what “FJ” stands for? Let’s have an
informal contest; the first one who figures it out and comments below gets a
free t-shirt! (Karen says keep it clean!)
Ben’s main focus is Klocke Farms’ day to day tasks, but does
help with PigEasy production.
Mitch
Mitch joined the team in August and hit the ground running getting
up to speed with PigEasy operations and products in addition to taking part
in Klocke Farms. While Mitch has spent a
lot of his first few months in a tractor helping with harvest, he has taken on
the role of PigEasy inventory, order management and shipping.
Post-harvest, Mitch’s
main focus will be PigEasy; we look forward to streamlining our system with
Mitch’s help!
Now that we are finished with harvest, we often look back
and wonder how the heck we did it all without these guys.
When we set out to develop the MealMeter, we were focused on two main benefits; to increase production while decreasing feed waste. Now that
we have had the MealMeter in front of pre breed gilts, weaned and under
conditioned sows, and lactating sows for a few years on our sow farm, we are
noticing many side benefits that are just as important, which are increased pigs per sow lifetime and reduced early culling.
Let’s focus on pigs per sow lifetime. In a recent NationalHog Farmer article, Ron Ketchum and Mark Rix from Swine Management Services
explained this calculation as (pigs
weaned lifetime from females culled, died and euthanized) divided by (females
culled plus females died plus females euthanized).
This is an important number, arguably more important than
PSY, because it is a better look at the overall ROI of each sow. A sow as an
economic unit does not reach profitability until after parity three. Also, pigs
from multi-parity sows have higher wean weights and perform better in the grow/finish sector.
“If each sow in the U.S. produced one more litter in her
lifetime, the U.S. swine industry would generate another $250 million of net
value for the pork industry,” says Jon Bergstrom, Ph.D., senior technical
support manager for DSM Nutritional Products.
So what does this
have to do with the MealMeter?
By ad lib feeding at critical times in a sow’s reproductive
cycle, over time we have been able to greatly increase our pigs per sow
lifetime, reduce early culling, and therefore reduce our replacement rate
in addition to many other benefits.
The image below displays those critical times in
orange. When pre breed gilts and sows
are able to efficiently consume their rations to maintain condition, they will
in turn perform better in subsequent parities and remain in the herd much
longer.
It’s time to put my
money where my mouth is.
When developing the MealMeter, we noticed that gilts would
adapt quickly and limited intake days were avoided. This turned into higher P1
performance, which then led us to putting it in front of the weaned and under
conditioned sows, along with lactating sows. These immediate benefits were
apparent, along with better feed efficiency and less feed waste.
Over the long term, we began to see much less fallout from
our herd. Sows who started off on the MealMeter continued to perform well and
we were able to reduce involuntary culling of younger, low parity sows with
performance issues from lack of consistent feed intake.
Overall, using the MealMeter has made a lasting impact in
our operation.
But let’s talk
numbers.
The year before implementing the MealMeter, our farm’s average pigs
per sow lifetime was 45, which was a pretty reasonable number to us at the time.
So far in 2015, our average pigs per sow lifetime has shot up to 58 and we are
seeing the numbers continue to trend upward.
The return on investment is far reaching as higher lifetime production
mean our sows are staying in the herd longer. This increases profitability
while producing heavier, healthier pigs.
