Dr. John Deen is a professor in the Department of Veterinary Population Medicine at the University of Minnesota. He is a world-renowned expert in swine health and production, and his research focuses on improving the efficiency and sustainability of pig farming. 
One of Dr. Deen’s areas of expertise is getting value from pigs, which involves maximizing the productivity of pigs while minimizing costs and environmental impact.  
In February, he told producers at the Manitoba Swine Seminar in Winnipeg, MB there are three steps to adding value to pigs.  
“Number one is creating an accounting system to know when we create added value and understand the components of increasing profitability on the farm. We don’t have it in our record-keeping systems, and we need to do a better job there.” 
Producers need not only look at the averages of pigs but look at individual pigs. That doesn’t mean weighing each pig but knowing the good and bad.  
Dr. Deen said producers must create counts and monitors to know when they buy or introduce pigs into the nursery. They may introduce a population of pigs that predictably have a lower value. And sometimes producers cull those pigs but need more discipline to help them make higher-quality decisions. Discipline means no organized or consistent way of doing something and no set of rules or guidelines.   
Thirdly, he said producers need to have some analytic system to understand how much the poor quality affects not only their income received at the market but also how the pigs proceed through their system.  
“We discussed today low birth weights can have a real effect through to market. And yet, we rarely have the systems to understand the effect upon that pig across the whole system.” 
With poorer-quality pigs in the producer’s barn, when does he know and decide that pig just isn’t worth moving along is a statistical question.  
“It’s a statistical question and it’s the question of odds. I explain to farmers it’s like which horses do you race, and which ones do you put out to pasture,” said Dr. Deen. “And that means looking at the numbers and understanding in more detail what you have.” 
It’s very different when a producer has too many pigs, takes the poorest pigs, and moves them elsewhere. But when there aren’t enough it takes a much better understanding of which pigs are good and which aren’t. 
Better analysis means record-keeping and watching those pigs.  
“I’m optimistic that individual animal monitoring will be part of our technological increase which will surprise the spread of performance and activities in our barns. But, unfortunately, we don’t have enough time to focus on an individual pig in a 5,000-head site and understand its full dynamics.” 
Before that happens, producers can take the outliers and monitor them in more detail. And use that as a beginning understanding of managing quality. 
World-renowned veterinarian Dr. John Carr has said producers will have fewer people available to work in barns in the future and those who do work will need to be professionals and not only people looking for a job.   
“Yes, exactly. And some professionals will be working on statistics, and some on labour management. And John’s a colleague of mine from a long time ago, and he worked with another colleague, Dr. Mike Muirhead.” 
And Mike used to talk about, well begun is half done. Producers need to do a better job quantifying their systems. 
Dr. Deen said data analysis could improve efficiency; his research has shown that analyzing data on pig health, growth, and performance can help farmers identify areas for improvement and increase efficiency. This includes monitoring feed intake, growth rates, and conversion ratios to optimize feed usage and reduce waste. •
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By Harry Siemens