There is a performance penalty associated with the 10-11 lb. Average Start Weight category but relatively less than in nursery groups. Groups with lower start weights tend to stay on-feed longer, have more sub-standard (lightweight) pig sales and fewer market hog sales as a % of all sales, lower feed cost/lb gain, and higher medication costs per pig.

There are definite effects of Days-on-Feed on wean-to-finish performance, and you can read the data as saying longer days-on-feed are a consequence of the associated biological performance. Groups with more days-on-feed have higher mortality, much lower average daily gain, higher (worse) feed conversion, and lower feed intake (ADFI). It’s counter-intuitive but groups with higher days-on-feed also have lower feed medication costs. It appears that in wean-to-finish groups, producers have more ability to use time to their advantage, i.e. allow slower-growing groups to remain on-feed until the group reaches a realistic target market weight. In contrast to finishing groups, the Average Start Weight in wean-to-finish groups is not the biggest driver of DOF. Instead, it’s more about lower feed intake and lower ADG.

Wean-to-finish groups with higher mortality levels have much lower out weights even though they are on-feed much longer (more Average Days-on-Feed). They sell a higher percent of sales as sub- standard (lightweight) pigs and a much lower percent as market hogs. They have the ‘high- mortality’ cluster of biological effects: lower average daily gain, higher (worse) feed conversion, lower feed intake, higher feed cost/lb gain, and higher medication costs.