• Quality assurance scheme to be rolled out nationally - sappo

Smaller producers
don’t always take
biosecurity seriously
enough
Mike Benson, Hogan Stud
1. What is your policy on biosecurity
and do you think that local producers
take biosecurity seriously
enough?
A good definition of biosecurity would
be “measures imposed to protect a biological
system from attack by potentially
harmful microorganisms that can reduce
the level of health of man and animals.”
Many routes exist for disease to gain
entry to the farm. These include animate
objects such as live pigs, dead pigs,
people, birds, rodents, flies, and semen
and inanimate objects such as transport,
feed, air, water, clothing, tools and
equipment, food and drink items.
Hogan is a closed herd, meaning that
our new genetics are from semen, both
fresh and frozen. We keep a strict fly
control program using larval inhibitors.
The lorry picking up pigs for slaughter is
washed and disinfected before visiting
the herd. A precaution against contamination
from such lorries is having a safe
pig-loading bay and by not allowing the
driver into the pig buildings. Visitors are
reduced to a minimum and any that have
to enter the piggery change into clothes
and boots that are kept on the farm. We
also insist that visitors stay away from
other pigs for a period of time before
visiting us. Our staff keep away from wild
pigs and other piggeries and wear clean
clothing and boots to work each day. A
secure, electrified perimeter fence keeps
unwanted people and possible vectors
out. Foot baths are provided at the
entrance to the farm and at each building.
We do not claim to be a high health
herd but rather a high immune herd.
This allows us to sell to smaller emerging
farmers who require a more robust, less
temperamental animal.
Our feeling is that the smaller local
producers don’t take biosecurity seriously.
All pigs brought onto the farm
should be quarantined, or at least physically
separated from your own pigs for at
least a month and treated with antibiotics
at therapeutic levels for pneumonias,
dewormed, demanged and vaccinated.
At Hogan we feel that
we have an underrated
product that we don’t
actively market, we
also don’t feel that we
want to tie people into
a contract.
A single source of breeding stock should
also be used rather than buying from
numerous sources and therefore from
different disease profiles.
2. What does the future hold for the
pig breeding industry and on what
breeding characteristics are you going
to focus in the next decade and
why?
There is currently a huge amount of
competition for market share with long
term contracts for replacement stock
being offered. At Hogan we feel that
we have an underrated product that
we don’t actively market, we also don’t
feel that we want to tie people into a
contract. If someone is happy with what
we provide they will come back for more.
Our breeding goals for the next decade
are not back fat or numbers born alive
which are at a very competitive level thus
our concentration going forward will be
focused on feet, legs and sow longevity.
Models have shown that production
BReediNg
Mike Benson, Hogan Stud
systems with the lowest replacement
rates were most profitable. Similarly,
sows with high lifetime production values,
a trait closely related to longevity,
reduced breeding cost/pig weaned. A
higher proportion of high-parity females
is a clear indication of a herd’s lifetime
reproductive performance. At Hogan we
feel that the optimal economic time to
cull a sow is after her eighth or ninth parity.
The bottom line is that a replacement
female must produce a sufficient number
of offspring to offset her purchase price
and maintenance costs. This edge can
make one farm more successful than
another. Reproductive failure, which can
encompass a variety of problems such
as failure to cycle or inability to conceive,
is clearly the single biggest reason sows
are removed from the breeding herd. Our
grading figures are over 85% P’s and O’s
on 73kg carcasses averaged over the
last 12 months. Breeding thinner animals
would only compromise sow condition
at weaning. Thin sows at weaning have
been problematic ever since intensive
management of the sow herd became
commonplace. Poor body condition
contributes to poor reproductive performance.
Once sows reach the fourth
parity, culling for reproductive failure
becomes less of an issue. Feet and leg
structure is critical to ensure animals
survive the desired nine lactations. As
sows get older and heavier their litters
also become larger putting excessive
strain on feet and legs, often resulting
in collapse and therefore the inability to
rear their litter. Internationally there is
talk of “30 pigs per sow per year” and
the “two ton sow”, the only way this can
be achieved is with sows that last parity
after parity and we are confident that our
genetics are up there with the best.
Porcus November/December 2010 25