There’s a familiar phrase that floats around in leadership circles: Never waste a good crisis. For producers in business for the long haul, crises are opportunities to eliminate the waste and wasteful habits that are acquired in good times. They are also an opportunity to re-focus, or refine the focus, of the organization; and, they are an opportunity to change the organization’s culture.
By now, the majority of producers have likely revisited their production inputs to cut out the obvious waste. However, there are subtle sources of waste that may have been overlooked.
Consider the herd health program. There is nothing efficient about trying to raise sick pigs. However, there is a tendency to apply vaccination programs, especially to the sow herd, in a manner that evenly distributes the workload while increasing the annual application rate. For example, if an erysipelas vaccine provides a six-month duration of immunity, vaccinating sows at weaning instead of vaccinating the entire herd (less culls) twice annually requires
approximately 20-25 percent more shots.
Although the actual cost may be small, such approaches need better justification than mere convenience because they increase the amount of vaccine applied, the total number of injections administered to the sows, supplies used, and employee hours spent performing immunizations.
Similarly, some animal health products may have been brought into the herd to prevent potential problems or to compensate for poor procedures. Again, I would not advocate arbitrarily slashing the animal health budget. However, it is rare to encounter a herd that has not been using some input as a form of “insurance” against a disease or a compensation for poor management—most often with limited benefit. There are no substitutes for sound power-washing and good facility hygiene. The days of using an input because it makes somebody “feel better” should be far behind us.
Likewise, feed ingredients beyond the required nutrients merit further consideration. Not only does diet formulation affect the quantity of feed consumed—and delivered, it also affects the amount of water used and quantity of manure needing removal from the facility. Inadequate water delivery has costs, too. Insufficient water affects feed consumption and milk production. Wasted water incurs costs of both delivery and removal.
In the past, the strategies of operations to maintain longevity have ranged from least-cost production to most profit production to most productive overall. Operations that fail to make connections between their financial and production records are ill-equipped to survive challenging market conditions. Least-cost production alone may not be sufficient either, as it can undermine pig and herd performance, thereby eroding revenue. Operations focused on overall efficiency are in the best position to survive long-term.
Most-efficient pig production demands a balance between herd productivity and its financial implications. For the farm manager who has diligently pursued labor and production efficiencies, being told by a consultant that they could be producing 30 pigs/sow/year can be a demoralizing experience.
With strong leadership and sound perspective, there is nothing more effective than a crisis to create a culture of efficiency.
Editor’s Note: This commentary is sponsored by Elanco Animal Health. For more information, go to: www.elanco.com. To visit with the author, send her an e-mail at: rutt0011@umn.edu
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