Every disease outbreak that devastates a commercial pig farm arrives through a specific pathway. A purchased replacement gilt that was not quarantined. A feed delivery truck whose wheels tracked manure…
JOHANNESBURG — Climate change is no longer just a “farm-gate” problem. As rising temperatures, severe droughts, and erratic weather patterns destabilize harvests, South Africa’s crucial agri-processing industry—the engine room of…
In West African poultry production, the housing decision made before the first bird arrives determines more of the flock’s lifetime performance than almost any decision made afterward. Cage systems are…
The farrowing interval — the time between one farrowing and the next — is the production cycle’s clock. Every day the clock runs represents feeding cost, housing overhead, and labor…
The scenarios that require milk replacer feeding in a commercial pig farrowing house arrive without warning and demand an immediate response. A sow that dies during a complicated farrowing, leaving…
Crushing — the death of a piglet when the sow lies on it, rolls onto it, or shifts her body weight over it — is the leading cause of pre-weaning…
In every commercial sow herd, every farrowing produces piglets that are measurably smaller than their littermates at birth. In most litters, the smallest piglet is 30–50% lighter than the average…
Weaning is the only production event in the pig’s life that imposes four simultaneous stressors at once: the abrupt cessation of the sow’s milk; removal from the sow and the…
No other nutritional intervention available to a commercial pig farm has the biological significance of the colostrum a piglet receives in its first hours of life. Not the most precisely…
The first week of a piglet’s life is the window during which a series of management procedures are performed that will influence its health, welfare, identification, and market value for…
