Automatic determination of batch farrowing system from the national data bank for pig farm management : method, results and perspectives

Poster. There is a large diversity of Batch Farrowing Systems (BFS) in French pig farms and farmers are looking for specific technical references for their own system. In this study we developed a method for automatic determination of BFS using weaning data of the national data bank for pig farm management. The method is based on the analysis of the distribution of two criteria: intervals between two “main weaning” events and duration of lactation. According to a survey conducted on 612 farms, the method provided accurate BFS determinations for more than 93% herds. The 3-week BFS is still dominant (70% of herds, 50% of sows), but the 1-week BFS already represents more than 25% of the sows. Sow individual litter performances were similar in the different BFS, whereas average annual herd performances varied between BFS mainly due to a reduction in the duration of productive cycle or of non-productive days. Technico-economical benchmarking procedures may benefit from a future automatic determination of BFS.