Lactational Feed Intake and Sow Retention

John Deen, Sukumarannair S. Anil y Leena Anil*. 2006. Vo Congreso de Producción Porcina del Mercosur, Río Cuarto. *University of Minnesota. www.produccion-animal.com.ar Volver a: Vo Congreso In our analyses we are often driven by averages. It can be average daily gain, average daily feed intake, average temperature in the barn or even average weight of pigs. Yet it is the extremes in each of these that cause the most problems. The old saying is “I have my head in the oven and my feet in ice water, so on average I am OK”. We are seeing that it is variation in temperatures within a grow finish barns that can cause many problems. I have also argued that average weights at marketing show little while it is the tail end pigs that cause the most problems. Feed intake can be examined in the same way. Average feed intake shows general trends within the group, but it may be that the extremes, especially the low extremes are better indicators of the problem.