The technical results, like growth monitoring, show the clear pay-off of the weaner pig strategy investment.
The piglets have been placed in pens of 30 and have been sorted for weight and gender. All capacity problems have vanished; on the contrary, there’s room left. Hannen says, “If growth is disappointing, even with 5,000 weaner-place ca- pacity there’s still a shortage. Nowadays, however, I have extra space, which just enhances growth and reduces the workload.” For Hannen, pig health is the key to success. “Purchasing” ani- mal health is not his thing, he says – the only vaccinations the pigs get is for Porcine Circovirus 2 (PCV2). He just wants to keep his piglets (TN70 sow x Tempo boar) healthy. Hannen says, “Everything starts with animal health. Vaccinations should not be necessary – or only to a minimum degree.”
The floor and the lower part of the walls have been coated, making them easy to clean and providing grip for the animals.
Both inside and in the yard the farm is spotless. Piglet transport is taken care of by the farm itself.
26 ▶ PIG PROGRESS | Volume 37, No. 3, 2021
Investments For the total TOP grower strategy, Hannen pays € 0.66 per grower pig place per month. He receives a reduction of € 0.17 per place because he is using the exclusive Agrifirm/ MS Schippers deal. A small part of the additional costs are compensated because the piglet feed has become a little cheaper. Acids that used to be part of the feed now go into the drink- ing water. In addition, the energy values in the feed have dropped slightly. Hannen says it is hard to support with figures the benefits of the grower pig strategy. What angles do you use for the calculations? That remains a bit arbitrary. Technical perfor- mance has definitely improved: the farm is not running at full capacity and the pig producer spends an hour dealing with 4,000 piglets. That is calculable. He doesn’t have to worry about flies, drinking water, ro- dents or sufficient on-farm clothing. That is all taken care of, as part of the fixed price. The effect of vital piglets is also noticeable in the finisher pig compartment; growth there is almost 1kg/day. If this trend continues, the 2021 average may even exceed 1kg/day. In that compartment the same rule applies – once the right path is found, things become smoother. If the pigs grow faster, capacity problems disap- pear and more pens can be kept empty between new in- habitants. All these effects would normally contribute to better technical performance results – and that’s exactly Hannen’s philosophy. In his view it just needed to take off. Implementing the system successfully is perfectly in line with his personality. He was already a neat and precise char- acter and demands his staff to have a similar attitude. By us- ing HyCare he just dotted the i’s and crossed the t’s in the grower pig department. All staff are paying more attention to getting dressed correctly, using syringes properly, choos- ing clean towels and paying attention to drinking water quality. Hannen says, “All staff have to appreciate the added value. Otherwise the advantages disappear quickly again.”
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