Tool assesses mortality costs for pigs

Profitable pig production depends on producing pigs to market, with costs below market price. Lowering mortality rates can improve potential profitability.

However, experienced pig producers know that mortality is a cost by its very nature and by efforts to reduce it.

Iowa State University Extension livestock specialist Russ Euken and Extension livestock economist Lee Schulz have developed two decision tool spreadsheets producers can use to help analyze the cost of mortality, one for wean-to-finish operations and the other for breed-to-wean operations, which are available for free through the ISU Ag Decision Maker website.

“The models are intended to help producers get a better handle on the economic opportunity of reducing swine mortalities,” Euken said in a news release.

The spreadsheets are based on budgets comparing current levels of mortality to a projected improvement. A user can analyze how mortality rate, current prices and other factors impact the cost of mortality. Fixed costs are included in the budget but do not change with mortality rate.

While it’s true that when a pig dies an operation’s fixed costs are spread over fewer pigs, total fixed costs for the operation have not changed.

In addition, the cost of mortality depends on when mortality occurs. The timing of death loss on average is built into the model as an input. In wean-to-finish production, when a pig dies it stops consuming feed and other non-feed variable costs that accrue on a per-pig basis, which saves costs. The amount of cost savings depends on relative feed costs. When feed prices are high, any cost savings is higher, especially if the pig dies early, compared to when feed prices are low.

When a pig dies late in the finishing phase, the cost savings is comparatively minor relative to the lost opportunity cost of marketing a finished pig. Also evident is the decreasing marginal returns to cost savings as mortality rate decreases.

In breed-to-wean production, if a sow is bred but mortality occurs before farrowing, a litter of pigs is not produced. If the mortality occurs after farrowing but before being bred, that sow and potential litter can be replaced assuming replacements are available for breeding. In that circumstance, mortality does not affect pigs produced in the operation, but it would affect cull sow income and replacement costs, as would death loss before farrowing. Piglet pre-wean mortality changes can also be modeled in the decision tool.