Production Tools

The veterinary profession continues to make greater use of production databases in serving the swine industry. These increasingly sophisticated database management systems, which combine financial and biological data, allow producers and practitioners to consider the biologica~ statistica~ and economic implications of possible management interventions. Frequency distributions and simple descriptive statistics can be very helpful in understanding the patterns that underlie commonly used measures of swine herd productivity. Statistics can be used to set feasible production targets and confidence intervals to accommodate the variability inherent in biology. Confidence intervals and interference levels can be adjusted to lessen the chances of Type I and Type II errors being made when sample sizes are small (e.g., in smaller herds or when one wishes to analyze performance over short time periods). These simple statistical techniques can help us avoid confusing normal variation with real changes in productivity.