Is your herd living up to its full genetic potential?

danbred team

Every farm has its own challenges but with strategic In-Farm Solutions from DanBred, good advice is available for everyone. Can the genetic potential be better utilised? Are there production factors that can be optimised? The answer is yes, when you choose a tailored solution from DanBred, which will help you to tackle issues and improve your operations by setting and achieving realistic and ambitious goals.

“Technical managers are sometimes perceived as firemen, who uncritically busy themselves with solving all of the pig producers’ acute problems by putting out little fires everywhere. But we are much more than that,” says Søren Thuesen, head of the In-Farm Solutions team at DanBred. “In fact, we provide deeper partnerships with farmers relating to strategic goals, where the animals’ genetic potential is fully utilised.”

A great way to get started with DanBred’s solutions and get a dialogue going with the team is to visit the DanBred website. Here, you can find a calculator that can check how well you are doing in terms of swine genetics, and by entering a few parameters from your farm, you immediately get an indication of whether your herd is living up to its full genetic potential.

“The calculator is intended to start a dialogue with the producer, which takes its starting point from the concrete situation. For example, if you are averaging 30 pigs per sow year while the genetic potential is 37, we can help with the right solution,” says Søren Thuesen.

 

A library of solutions

There are 15 different In-Farm Solutions that can be put into action and adapted to meet the needs of the individual farm. The process typically stretches over several months focusing on a single goal. For example, if you want to increase the weaning weight, we will hone in on the sows’ productivity in the DanBred MaxWean solution. If the herd is newly started or sanitised, then DanBred Gilt can be highly beneficial to use. DanBred Validated Feeding can help to optimise feed consumption, Reproductive Performance analyses the mating strategy, etc. There are solutions that are broad in scope and solutions that are more specialised, and, generally, farmers move from the broad solutions to the more specialised solutions during the consultation process.

“A solution process often starts with an ambition, e.g. to increase meat percentage or lower feed consumption of the finishers, and so we find out whether the genetic potential is being fully utilised,” says Søren Thuesen.

Among other factors, the index of the used animals is examined in order to assess whether it is at an optimal level. There is a large difference in potential in gilts with a high index and gilts with a low index. And by changing this and other parameters, it is possible to determine what can be improved, so that the potential can be increased and better utilised.

“If the breeding potential in the herd cannot be fully utilised, the low productivity may be caused by a number of contributing factors,” says Søren Thuesen. “If this is the case, we can identify the bottlenecks and help with the implementation of concrete solutions – all within the framework of our In-Farm Solutions and in close collaboration with the farm employees.”

 

Partnerships with a bottom line focus

Søren Thuesen also mentions that the In-Farm Solutions team collaborates both directly with farmers and with local consultants, sounding out and exchanging ideas.

“We are more than happy to collaborate with local consultants and producers, where we offer to handle the process as the project manager. Our main focus is the producer’s bottom line and we can help to develop and see new possibilities as an ongoing partner who exchanges and sounds out ideas,” says Søren Thuesen.

“The DanBred In-Farm Solutions are relevant to everyone. You do not need to have a farm at the really large end of the scale to be able to benefit from the solutions – you just need to have an ambition of wanting to be better tomorrow,” says Søren Thuesen.

Find the DanBred calculator at https://danbred.com/calculator


There is money to be made
If you focus on lowering feed consumption by 0.15 feed units per kg gain and produce 10,000 finishers a year, then you could potentially look forward to saving € 53,000. To achieve this, In-Farm Solutions proposes a change in the recruitment strategy and a search for causes in relation to the current feed consumption. Before implementing new initiatives, the bottom line is calculated to see whether the changes make financial sense.

 

In-Farm Solutions in numbers
The team is rapidly growing and currently consists of five employees, with more joining in local markets across the world.
Activities are spread across 17 customers, who together have 2.5 million sows.
The size of these customers ranges from 1,300 sows to 1.2 million sows.

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