Going Three-For-Three in the Nursery

When Mark Schaefer built a new nursery at his Taopi, MN hog operations and adopted a new feeding process, he was hoping to reduce variation, improve growth, and lower feed costs.

A tall order, most would say, given the challenges that many systems have achieving just one of these goals consistently. But after six turns, running around 6,000 pigs through, he has consistently achieved superior performance in all three of these areas and is on track to save at least $16,500 annually (see Table 1).

The key to Schaefer’s success is targeted feeding. By sorting the pigs into three weight groups and feeding each group a precise ration suited to their needs, he is able to avoid underfeeding of light pigs and overfeeding of heavy pigs, helping to reduce variation. Average daily gain is also improved through this process and feed costs are lowered by feeding less of the high-cost rations to the heavier pigs. 

Schaefer’s nursery is a two-room, 2,000-head facility designed to handle a flow which cycles 1,000 head through every 21 days. To keep the system flowing, each batch of 1,000 must exit in 42 days or less, whatever the weight.  

The barn is equipped with a Feedlogic FeedSaver M-Series feed system which can pull feed from any one of the four bins serving the facility and deliver to any of the 40 feeders. Schaefer sorts the pigs on entry and assigns them to specific pens. Typically he has 3-4 pens of heavies, 4-5 pens of lights, and 11-13 pens of standard weight (see Table 3).

Once a batch is sorted and placed, the FeedSaver system can be programmed to feed each pen according to requirements. Working with Feedlogic and Land O’ Lakes nutritionists, Schaefer created specific feed curves for each weight class. Light pigs receive more of the early diets than standard weight pigs and standard pigs get more than heavy pigs (see Table 2).

The FeedSaver system weighs and records all the feed into the feeder. When a pen has consumed a budgeted amount (based on the number of pigs in the pen), the system automatically moves it on to the next phase in the curve. This eliminates any overage and underage between phases. It also keeps each pen moving along a feed curve at its own pace. Slower eaters stay on higher protein rations longer than the faster eaters.

At the same time, feed management is made simpler by always keeping the same diet in each bin. One is dedicated to pellets, one to transition diet, one to a high-protein grower and one to a low-protein grower. Feed left over from one batch can easily be carried over to the next batch, eliminating the headaches associated with ordering the right amount of feed.  

The FeedSaver system tracks inventories by pen and will automatically adjust the budget when pigs are removed. This ensures accurate feeding when there are health challenges and/or higher than normal mortalities.

Moving forward, Schaefer plans to continue to fine tune the feeding strategy to extract additional value. He is already realizing over $1.00/pig in savings, not including the downstream benefits of having larger, more even pigs entering the finisher. As the cost of feed rises, the potential benefits will grow incrementally. Every one-cent decrease in the average cost price per pound of feed nets an additional $0.55 per pig. In today’s challenging financial environment, that can mean the difference between surviving or not.

Table 1: Schaefer Nursery Average Performance & Costs

Table 2: Typical Feed Consumption By Group (lbs/pig)

Table 3: Typical Group Size & Weight

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