Farming Talk: Retain gilts to improve herd performance

One of the biggest wins for herd performance is there for the taking by every producer and, at AHDB Pork, we’re inviting producers to take part in Gilt Watch to help them achieve it.

Across the industry, breeding herds need to retain more young sows (gilts) in the herd if they are to make significant gains in physical and financial performance.

It typically costs around £250 to rear each gilt, so putting the groundwork in to make sure they get past their first or second parity and reach their full lifetime potential is vital to get a return on that investment.

A few simple steps are often all that are needed to make big improvements but, first, we need to understand why young sows are failing in the first place.

That’s why, for Gilt Watch, AHDB Pork is getting together producers, from both indoor and outdoor units, to monitor gilt performance, work out where changes can be made and help put successful plans into practice. As well as picking up ideas from fellow producers, there will be advice on hand from a number of industry experts.

Our targets as an industry include retaining 80 per cent or more gilts the point of a successful pregnancy diagnosis at their third gestation.

Producers taking part will be monitoring individual performance from cohorts of gilts, implementing changes and meeting twice a year to review progress, over a two-year period. They’ll also hopefully be able to experience with the wider industry and benefiting from other producers’ ideas.

The kind of areas that could be important to focus on were discussed at our gilt management events last month and nutrition was one key example.

A sow’s diet has a major impact on feeding and rearing piglets successfully. It works out that 53.2 per cent of a piglet’s lifetime from conception to slaughter is influenced by its mother’s diet, during pregnancy and lactation. You’re not just feeding the sow, you’re feeding the piglets too.

Gilts have extra nutritional requirements, above those of more mature sows, during pregnancy and lactation because they are still growing themselves, as well as growing their litter. A special gestation diet formulation for gilts must also deliver energy and nutrients for mammary gland development.

For more details and to apply to be part of Gilt Watch, go to pork.ahdb.org.uk/pig-production/gilt-watch/ and email the short application form to us at pork.kt@ahdb.org.uk by 22 December 2017.

AHDB Pork will be inviting producers to the first Gilt Watch meeting on 25 January 2018 with a dinner beforehand on the evening of 24 January 2018.

Gilt Watch is an AHDB Farm Excellence initiative which uses technical events and farmer-to-farmer learning to accelerate the uptake of knowledge, and provides a framework for farmers to explore the potential impact that adopting best practice can have on their business.