Four Major Pitfalls to Watch Out for When Introducing Breeding Stock into a Pig Farm
For pig farmers, the annual work of updating breeding stock is very important. Each year, a breeding stock replacement rate of at least around 30% should be ensured, which is crucial to pig farmers' breeding profits and the sustainable development of the pig farm. However, many pig farmers have many misconceptions when introducing breeding stock, and these misconceptions usually lead to failed introductions and affect their finances. So what are the pitfalls in introducing breeding stock into a pig farm? Let's take a look below!
1. Health Status
The health status of breeding pigs is the first issue we need to consider when introducing breeding stock. Many pig farmers generally do not pay attention to health issues when introducing breeding stock, and only consider factors such as body shape and price. As a result, after the pig farmers introduce the breeding stock, the breeding pigs have poor constitutions, are susceptible to disease, and have a high mortality rate, and they can also easily affect other healthy pigs on the farm. Therefore, when introducing breeding stock, we should pay attention to whether the health and epidemic prevention system of the breeding pig farm is normal and whether the area is an epidemic area. If you are not reassured, it is best to carry out blood tests.
2. Body Size
Some pig farmers pay excessive attention to the body shape of breeding pigs when introducing breeding stock. For example, they only require the hindquarters to be large enough, and without considering factors such as production performance, farrowing ability and lean meat rate, they blindly proceed. In fact, the double-muscled hindquarters we commonly see are merely a morphological characteristic of some pig breeds; for example, Pietrain and Landrace pigs both have this trait. Moreover, the milk yield of double-muscled pigs is lower than that of single-muscled pigs, which directly affects the litter weight of piglets after weaning. In addition, pigs with large hindquarters are prone to difficult births. Therefore, when introducing breeding stock, we should make a comprehensive consideration based on lean meat rate, quality, limbs and hooves, growth speed and feed utilization rate, so as to ensure the quality of the breeding pigs.
3. Body Weight
When introducing breeding stock, it is not the case that the heavier the breeding pig, the better. If the body weight is too large, it may affect the production performance of the breeding pig and reduce the farrowing rate. Once the body weight exceeds 120 jin, the feed should then be changed to gilt feed. This is because sows at this time need a large amount of nutrition. Fattening feed contains a large amount of growth promoters, which can cause great harm to the reproductive system, estrus rate and mating conception rate of gilts. In addition, breeding pig farms generally do not change feed, so the greater the body weight, the worse the quality may be. Everyone must pay close attention to this.
4. Introducing Breeding Stock from Family Pig Farms
Many pig farmers like to introduce breeding stock from family pig farms, thinking that local pig breeds are abundant in sources and can improve the production performance of their own pig herds. But in fact, doing so carries great risks. Because breeding pig farms differ, the environment and structure of their bacteria and pathogens will also differ. In addition, most diseases now exist as latent infections, so if pigs from different pig farms are mixed together, various diseases are very likely to break out, seriously affecting breeding profits. Therefore, when introducing breeding stock, it is best to introduce them from the same breeding pig farm.
The above is a brief introduction to the four major pitfalls in introducing breeding stock into a pig farm. That is all for today's introduction. This article is for reference only, and we hope it can help everyone!