The physical performance of Britain’s best pig breeders reached new levels in the year to June 2013, according to data provided to BPEX by Agrosoft.
The top third of breeders weaned more than 26 pigs/sow/year for the first time, while the top 10% achieved 28 pigs/sow.
However, the average performance across all herds was little changed in the 12 months to June this year at 22.85 pigs/sow.
Nevertheless, this does mark a modest improvement compared with the previous quarter due to a combination of slightly larger litters, more litters/sow and a lower mortality rate.
The quarter on quarter productivity increase was larger among outdoor herds, up by 0.38 to 21.70 pigs/sow, than indoor ones, up 0.10 to 24.20 pigs/sow.
There were also further improvements in the performance of rearing and finishing herds in the latest quarter, notably in feed efficiency. The feed conversion ratio for rearing herds improved from 1.80 in the three months to March 2013 to 1.75 in the three months to June.
In finishing herds, the equivalent figure moved from 2.87 to 2.81 over the same period.