MANAGEMENT
PIH-100
pork industry handbook
COOPERATIVE EXTENSION SERVICE • PURDUE UNIVERSITY • WEST LAFAYETTE, INDIANA
Performance Guidelines for the Swine Operation
Authors:
Vernon B. Mayrose, Purdue University
David H. Bache, Purdue University
George Libal, South Dakota State University
Reviewers:
Virgil Hays, University of Kentucky
Connie L. Mannings, Tuskegee Institute
The success of a swine enterprise is measured in terms of profits. Profits are determined by how well an operation is managed from both financial and production management aspects. The purpose of this fact sheet is to provide performance guidelines or standards (Table 1) with which to compare the performance results you are getting on your farm. This comparison will provide a production profile and will enable you to identify where production management can be improved. The production profile can be used to:
•	Provide an early warning of developing problems
•	Provide clues to basic weaknesses in your program
•	Monitor herd health
•	Provide information for budgeting or feasibility studies
•	Provide a basis for incentive payments to labor
•	Identify major costs
•	Permit a comparison with other producers
•	Provide a basis for seasonal adjustments in management
Records
Records must be available to establish the production profile. Select those items in Table 1 that you think are important production criteria, ones for which you are willing to spend the time and effort necessary to collect the necessary data. Collecting and not using data is a waste of your time. Discipline yourself to be selective and honest with your record keeping, data evaluation, and management decisions.
Determining Your Swine Production Profile*
Table 1 lists measures of performance for establishing a production profile. Presented for each measure are: (1) three levels of performance, excellent, average, and poor, (2) attainable goals, and (3) a space to record the results being achieved on your farm. The following text provides a brief discussion of each performance standard, what it measures, and how it is calculated.

Some items listed in Table 1 are measures of overall performance, such as hogs raised per litter farrowed, and are broad indicators of management. Such comprehensive measures have the weakness of failing to pinpoint a problem, if it is the only record kept. You may decide that records on more specific measures, such as pigs/litter farrowed alive, are also required in your operation for production management decision making. Your swine performance profile should be continued over the years to allow a study of trends and emerging problems.

1. Pregnancy rate. Pregnancy rate provides an early warning of a reproduction problem provided you make an effort to detect open or recycling females. A female that fails to conceive means no pigs at farrowing from her and fewer from the herd as a whole. Yet it costs as much to feed and maintain an "open” sow as it does a pregnant one, and feeding open sows increases the costs per market hog sold. Knowing the pregnancy rate per sow group or period also allows you to prepare for gluts or shortages of pigs.

* Some definitions and formulas were adapted from "Generally Accepted Terms and Formulas for the Pork Industry, available from National Pork Producers Council. P.O. Box 10383, Des Moines, Iowa 50306.
Cooperative Extension Work in Agriculture and Home Economics, State of Indiana, Purdue University and U. S. Department of Agriculture cooperating. H. A. Wadsworth, Director, West Lafayette, IN. Issued in furtherance of the Acts of May 8 and June 30, 1914. It is the policy of the Cooperative Extension Service of Purdue University that all persons shall have equal opportunity and access to its programs and facilities without regard to race, color, sex. religion, national origin, age or handicap.