In a survey published in 2007 (1), the most commonly reported pathogens in sow herds were PRRSV, influenza virus, Clostridium type A, and Streptococcus suis. In production systems that reported pathogens of concern for sow herds, PRRSV ranked as number one, causing the most issues with productivity, followed by influenza, Clostridium type A, and Rotavirus (either alone or in combination with Escherichia coli). The ranking could have changed since then, if for no other reason than because of the emergence of porcine epidemic diarrhea (PED), which caused significant losses in naïve populations.

The required husbandry skills of caretakers has increased because numerous sows are now farrowing more piglets than they can nurse; thus, colostrum management and cross-fostering skills are needed. Because large litters require a large volume of milk per day, the management of lactation feed allotment is critical. Excellent management needs to be used every day whereby all piglets and sows are provided appropriate welfare conditions.

Loose housing can be done in different ways, such as:

• Crates with free access

• Small groups of 6-8 sows

• Larger groups of 20-30 sows with long trough

• Electronic Sow Feeding (ESF)

While the causes for each of these failures can be single and in some cases multi-factorial, making changes for increased sow retention past parity 3 will require more detailed information to make advances. Information on the female, her history, recent events and observations from different stages of production would be important for helping troubleshoot problems and minimize problems in the future. While it may not be possible to correct ongoing fertility problems in certain females, it may be most effective to try and prevent similar types of problems in subsequent groups of sows identified for risk of failure. Knowing the risk factors associated with the specific types of failures on farms could help identify factors that can be controlled to reduce the incidence of these types of failures in the future. Treating each case of failure as unique will allow for a thorough accounting for history, and will provide the greatest chance for identifying contributing factors and eliminating these risks.

In terms of nutrition, feeding newly-weaned pigs, low complexity diets increases their susceptibility to disease. The optimum inclusion level of fish oil in corn and soybean meal based nursery diets is about 2.5%, reducing the dietary ratio between omega-6 and health benefit providing omega 3 fatty acids from about 18 in diets with no fish oil to 3.

strides are being made in genetically selecting pigs that have improved resistance to multiple pathogens or a particular pathogen (i.e., PRRSV), or to identify genetic defects that may render pigs more susceptible to disease. Based on these approaches various genetic markers have been identified.

On-farm studies are conducted in Ontario to establish the prevalence of a number of pathogens on different farms and among pigs within farms, to relate pathogen load to reductions in animal performance, to identify so- called biomarkers for pathogen load and reduction in performance, and to establish the effect of pig genotype and feeding-programs on the pig’s ability to cope with pathogens. These studies illustrate the large variability in nursery pig performance in Ontario, and the close association between expression of some genes in the liver, as well as plasma levels of selected cytokines and acute phase proteins, with nursery performance. These relationships should be explored further and will help us to identify approaches to minimize the negative effects of sub-clinical disease on pig performance, wellbeing and profits.

Managing a finishing barn or operation requires as much detail as sow and nursery barn. Establishing good strong daily routines and follow up with issues for pig health and barn operations help to achieve great finishing barn performance.

Recently two different data sets are available that highlight ‘normal’ performance in production facilities. While these data sets have some overlap between producers providing input, for the most part they represent different segments of the US and North American production industry.

The data reviewed by Stalder (2014) includes the majority of the production systems in the Southeast and southern plains regions. It also includes several of the larger production systems in the upper Midwest. The systems in this data set tend to use diets with higher levels of dietary fat additions and often pellet their diets in owned/controlled feed mills.

The data from the MetaFarms record system tends to represent more upper Midwest and Canadian producers. In many instances they have on-farm feed processing or use toll mills with limited pelleting capabilities. The diets tend to include higher levels of DDGS as an ingredient due to the localized availability and pricing of this ingredient.

Microbiological hygiene shows to be an essential step towards a more sustainable and efficient feed to food production cycle. It combines the interests of the farmer, food industry and society in a positive manner. To optimize feed utilization, good hygiene practices are of essential importance. Specialized synergistic blends of acids make sustainable feeding more available, they are easy to implement and highly efficient. The addition of organic acids to liquid feed can be used as a means of increasing the biosafety and maintaining nutritional quality of liquid feeding and liquid feeding systems ensuring good animal performance.

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.