The Pig Farm Manager For Modelling Pig Production Systems

Before setting up or changing a pig farm operation, the consequences of the farm set up must be explored and changes planned. To calculate technical and economic consequences a farm manager model for pig production systems, the Pig Farm Manager, has been developed. The Pig Farm Manager estimates the effects of various farm designs as well as farm management on production, environmental and economical parameters. The Pig Farm Manager includes simulations for sow farms and finisher pig farms. In the model the user enters farm data on e.g. farm size, housing system or farm management (e.g. feeding strategy), which the model uses to calculate output-parameters. The Pig Farm Manager estimates cost price, profits, gross margins, costs and income per farm, per sow or finisher place. To evaluate the analytical capacities of the model a comparison between a standard sow farm and a high-health-status farm was made. The high-health-farm (HHF) had better growth of piglets, lower mortality rate and better fertility traits for sows compared to a standard farm. However, the HHF had higher investment costs and required more labour. Overall, on the HHF, cost price per piglet was 3.19 lower and yearly farm income about 21,000,- higher compared to the standard sow farm.