PIG RECORDING

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXIII, Issue 105, 15 April 1933, Page 4

PIG RECORDING

RESULTING IN INCREASED EFFICIENCY. I MPORTANCE OF REG CLARITY IN BREEDING. Pig recording has now been in use in New Zealand for some time, and reports from the Manawatu and Waikato Pig Recording Clubs would indicate that the value of such a system is being recognised. Pig recording is now being used as a help towards increased efficiency on the Continent, and Mr. R. H. Davidson, M.A.. writing in the Meat Trades Journal, recently, discusses some ways in which effective use can be made of the records which become available. In the early days of milk recording, he says, it was a common mistake to consider that the higher a cow’s record, quite irrespective of the circumstances under which it was achieved, the better the cow. Now we have come to realise that the circumstances connected with the yield have all to be taken into consideration before getting what is known as the “corrected” yield, or the yield on which all animals, whatever their age or the time of year at which they calved, can be compared. in the ease of pigs, we have just got lo the stage when we are talking about the number per litter weaned by a sow. This of course is important, but what really counts from a commercial point of view is the number of pigs weaned per sow year. The cost of each pig weaned is the cost of the sow over a year divided by the number weaned in that period, and it is possible for a sow to have a high average for llm number weaned and yet to have a relatively small number weaned per sow ■year. The financial importance of this will be realised when it is considered that in East Anglia, a district famed for its pig production, the average number weaned per sow year among recorded herds was only 10J, whereas it has been shown to b« quite possible to reach a figure of round about 15 per year. The cost per pig in the first ease will be 37/6, while in the second it will be. 26/6, taking food at Id per lb. Now the recording results show that the average number of pigs weaned per sow was 74. so that obviously the difficulty lay in not getting the sows to breed regularly twice per year. If the sows were made to breed regularly every six months, then the number weaned per sow per year would be raised to nearly .15 without raising the number weaned per litter at all. If, on the other hand, the number weaned were raised to 8 per litter, without altering the period at which th,e sqws farrowed, then the average per sow would only be 12. There is at present a tendency to think that the first thing necessary to improve pig-keeping is litter-testing. The above figures indicate that this Is fallacious, and that pig recording, which can be carried out so very much more cheaply, would go a long way towards bringing our standard of efficiency up to the level of our competitors.