For swine producers to optimize profits during the summer months, nutritionists need to be updating diets several months earlier as far as employing different nutritional and marketing strategies. In this episode, Dr. Matt Ritter, Matt Wolfe, and Dr. Qingyun Li discuss recent shifts in feed costs and market value for pigs this summer and how that may impact the strategies that producers employ on the farm. 

What you'll learn:

• As an industry, what trends are we seeing this coming summ
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Managing a sow herd is arguably the most complex aspect of swine production to manage. Each sow needs individualized attention to maximize performance and rebreeding success. In today’s talk, Dr. Laura Greiner and Stephen Hall discuss different management strategies and practices that can help get the most out of our sows and our employees.

What you will learn:

1. Retention rates within sow herds

2. Gilt longevity

3. Tolerance in rebreeding failures

4. Key points

Meet the guest: Ste...

An important aspect of pig production is being environmentally aware of the decisions you make so that pork production can continue to grow for the foreseeable future. Sustainability is a topic that we are constantly learning about and improving. In today’s talk with Dr. Erin Cortus, she discusses what sustainability means today, and how we as a community can continue to produce pork while minimizing the effect we could have on the environment.

What you will learn:

1. The definition ...

"We must improve our marketing strategies to minimize weight variation in the packing plants." – Dr. Matt Ritter

What you'll learn:

1. Why body weight variation is a concern
2. Money and managing variation
3. Factors that influence body weight variation
4. Expected level of variation within a population
5. Variation as the pig gets older
6. Variation in a late finishing barn
7. How to mitigate variation
8. The post-weaning body weight coefficient of variation.
9. Recommendations for setting up a barn
10. T...

''The good news is that the pigs are one of the most developed species in terms of biotechnology, genetic modification, and disease detection.'' - Dr Guillermo Ramis

What you'll learn:

1. Xenotransplantation

2. Challenges

3. Components and proteins targeted

4. Achieving a succesful liver transplant

5. Survivability of a litter of modified pigs

6. Survivability of the transplant itself

7. Animal weight vs Receiver weight

8. Public acceptance

Meet the guest: Dr. Ramis rece...

"𝘠𝘰𝘶 𝘤𝘢𝘯 𝘧𝘦𝘦𝘥 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘳𝘢𝘪𝘴𝘦 𝘱𝘪𝘨𝘴 𝘪𝘯 𝘢 𝘭𝘰𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘥𝘪𝘧𝘧𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘸𝘢𝘺𝘴, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦’𝘴 𝘯𝘰 𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘭𝘦 𝘮𝘢𝘨𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭 𝘸𝘢𝘺 𝘰𝘧 𝘴𝘦𝘵𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘳𝘦𝘥𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘣𝘦 𝘶𝘴𝘦𝘥." - 𝗗𝗿. 𝗠𝗶𝗸𝗲 𝗧𝗼𝗸𝗮𝗰𝗵

𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝘄𝗶𝗹𝗹 𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗻:

1. Swine nutrition audit
2. The process of establishing a goal
3. Aligning with the correct goals
4. Performance data
5. Records and information
6. Analyzing ingredients
7. Vitamin and mineral storage
8. Examining formulations
9. Energy
10. How much leeway to give in formulation
11. Feed mill
12. Particle size
13. M...

Here is the one concept that I wish most schools would teach swine industry professionals: space long and space short.

Space long or space short has to do with how is the pig flow from the production system?

Do we need to market the pigs as soon as possible because the nursery pigs are coming? That would mean the production system is space short.

Or, we do not need to rush too much; we can leave the finishing pigs a few days more in the barn to reach target weight since the nursery pigs are...