Management in batches in pigs
With the development and professionalization of the pig sector, it is necessary to work with homogeneous production groups and for this purpose the reproductive management in batches has some interesting advantages from the point of view of personnel management and work organization, but it also has health and biosecurity advantages.
Sow farms can select from several different options to form their production batches, in a weekly group or choose every 2, 3, 4, or even every 5 weeks.
– Health benefits: one of the main positive points when changing a farm to batch management is the health improvement it brings. This management in groups of piglets separated several weeks in their birth, usually allows us to make a much stricter management when not mixing ages-lots, so the transmission of pathogens between groups of animals of different ages is minimized. Depending on the design of the farm, we will be able to prevent a production batch from coming into contact, at any time, with its “siblings” in the anterior and posterior batch, so the spread of pathogens is further minimized.
– Biosecurity benefits: Concentrating tasks in specific weeks can help us to improve the biosecurity of our farm. As an example, instead of having weekly loads of piglets, we will have a monthly load, which reduces the risk of introduction of pathologies through transport. All this will help us to concentrate more efforts to avoid the external entrance of agents in the precise moments in which we have the risk.