Bernie Peet

Reading Time: 3 minutes In most herds, uterine infections are relatively rare, but a routine check for possible problems immediately after farrowing is still essential. In some herds, infections are more common and may lead to compromised sow health, which can impact piglet survival. Also, infections tend to persist, sometimes even after treatment, leading to reduced fertility after the […] Read more

Reading Time: 3 minutes British pig producers have long extolled their high animal welfare standards compared to European competitors and welfare has been an important component of quality assurance schemes since their inception in the early ’90s. However, measurement of welfare has always been a challenge because it has been done by assessing various aspects of the pigs’ environment […] Read more

Reading Time: 4 minutes Pig producers around the world have suffered from poor returns over the last couple of years, leading to industry rationalization and a focus on efficiency and cost reduction. Nowhere is this more true than in Denmark, which has one of the highest production costs of the major pig-producing nations. The Danish Agriculture and Food Council […] Read more

Reading Time: 3 minutes About five years ago, the availability of skilled workers in the pork industry (and indeed in agriculture as a whole) began to dwindle as people started leaving for other jobs, notably in the oil industry. Larger production companies were first to respond by recruiting workers from overseas. Many now have almost 50 per cent foreign […] Read more

Reading Time: 4 minutes Every breeding herd should have output targets such as number of matings and farrowings per week and average numbers born and weaned. Computerized herd-recording systems have come a long way since they were first developed in the 1980s and with today’s computing power are capable of complex analysis. But many producers don’t look beyond the […] Read more

Reading Time: 3 minutes As sows have been selected for greater milk production and productivity levels have been improved in commercial units, both milk production and litter weaning weights have increased substantially, says Casey Neill, a nutritionist with PIC North America. With increased potential for milk production, management and nutritional factors must be changed to meet these demands for […] Read more

Reading Time: 3 minutes Improved assessment of the fertility of commercial AI boars and a move to single-boar AI programs would have significant economic benefit for the swine industry, says Dr. George Foxcroft of the Swine Research and Technology Centre at the University of Alberta. Identification of the most fertile boars would enable lower numbers of sperm per AI […] Read more

Reading Time: 4 minutes “We have been providing additional water troughs for the first three days until the pigs find that there is water at the feeder too.” MARTIN WALDNER HOG BOSS – HARTLAND COLONY, ALBERTA In my last article, I described the breeding herd management at Hartland Colony, located near Bashaw, Alberta, which not only weans 30 pigs […] Read more

Reading Time: 3 minutes Achieving 30 pigs weaned per sow is a target that just a few producers hit, but to do it from a standing start, with a new barn, in just 12 months seems nothing short of impossible. Yet that is exactly what hog boss Martin Waldner and his team have done at Hartland Colony, near Bashaw, […] Read more

Reading Time: 4 minutes factors that triggered the outbreak. Infectious diseases play a relatively unimportant role in piglet survival up to weaning on most farms. However, looking at the data in herd-recording programs, piglet scours, or diarrhea, is one health problem that may cause a significant number of deaths. Scours can be caused by bacteria such as E. coli […] Read more