RED DEER – Grandma’s advice to look after the pennies and the dollars will look after themselves can be applied to the pork business.
Money isn’t easy to make in the pig business, but several small changes can add up to big savings, said Lee Whittington of the Prairie Swine Centre in Saskatoon.
“We’re not talking about picking up the dollars, we’re talking about small amounts of money,” Whittington told producers at a seminar designed to help find the profit in the pig business.
“What are some of the things we can do in the short term without spending money on capital to increase profit?”
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One of the swine centre’s tricks to save money is using a weigh scale, Whittington said. On the first shipping day for a group of animals, the centre weighs all the animals in the finishing group. All the pigs in the correct market weight are shipped that day. Pigs that are close to the shipping weight are marked with a specific colour. By knowing how much weight animals gain each day, the centre can predict which pigs will be ready to be shipped the following week.
The centre only weighs the animals every second week. It cuts down on the hassle of weighing, but it also ensures producers aren’t penalized by shipping underweight or overweight pigs to market.
The centre improved its ability to market only the animals closest to the key market weight to 90 percent from 70 percent. That increased profits by $4.75-$12 a pig depending on the packing plant where they are shipped.
“There’s huge dollars but we have to weigh the pigs,” said Whittington.
Another cost saving measure is making sure all the feeders are working correctly. The rule of thumb is if there’s feed on the floor, producers are wasting five percent of the feed, or about $2 per pig. No feed on the floor is not necessarily a good sign either, he said. Reduced feed intake by one percent reduces growth by one to two percent, which can add up to huge costs.
Whittington said they ask producers to check how many of their feeders are empty. Producers usually report up to 10 percent of their feeders are not delivering feed to the pens, usually due to poor adjustment, plugged feed lines or empty bins. The additional days pigs spend in the barn could cost $3 per pig in feed and another $3 per pig in additional barn days.
“If 10 percent of the feeders are not working, you’re losing 10 percent of the barn’s average daily gain. That’s real.”
Wasting water can also be expensive, said Whittington.
Previous tests show that up to 40 percent of the water delivered through a water nipple is wasted. Adjusting the height of the water nipples dramatically reduces wasted water. The waste is in the cost of water, the cost to move it as waste and the cost of energy to bring it to the barn.
Making simple adjustments to the barn’s thermometer can also save money. Every one degree increase above the pig’s comfort zone reduces feed increase one to two percent and drops growth rate three percent. Proper temperature adjustment can save 50 cents to $1 a pig depending on energy costs, said Whittington.
Fan blades and shutters should always be cleaned when the room is washed, he said. Dirty fan blades and shutters can restrict air flow by 30 percent, increasing energy costs by 42 percent.
Pork producer Paul Chouinard of Crossfield, Alta., said he planned to go back to his farm and squeeze more money out of his barn by making the adjustments Whittington suggested.
“You can’t leave any money on the table,” said Chouinard.
“It’s good to come over here and get pumped up a little bit.”
Jack Moerman, chair of the Alberta Pork Producers, said there is no silver bullet in the pork business, but each adjustment helps.
“It’s not doing something 1,000 times better; it’s doing 1,000 things one percent better,” said Moerman.
“Many of these things we know, but it’s always good to be reminded of the basics.”
