Presented by Dr Jonathan van Dissel at the recent Pub ‘n Pork Seminar Dinner meetings
The production board is like a builder’s hammer. You would think that with all the technological advances it would become obsolete, but I don’t see many tradesmen rolling around without one. it is one the best tools for a piggery. It’s simple, efficient, easy to use and can capture a large portion of important information in a small (ish) space.
Some of the main benefits include:
- The ability to foresee future areas of flow, production and or health concerns, by identifying current trends (such as gilt replacement in ratio to culled/returning sows)
- The unification of teams across the piggery. Not often do all sectors of a pig enterprise communicate with each other, the production board offers insight into how every team members work contributes towards the piggeries goals and targets.
- It allows insight into management practices and protocol efficiency. Example: 21 day returns are not being detected in week 4 of the board, but pregnancy checks a week later reveal several NIPs.
- Production boards are public to all workers on the farm. This discourages the manipulation of data, upholds data integrity and instigates constructive conversation around production, management and flow.
While most data capturing software WILL contain the information within a production board, the board allows swift, real-time, accurate information to be available between veterinarian and, farm employees and managers. The Apiam production board has been redesigned to highlight these benefits, offer clear and concise information gathering, and a greater degree of data capture than tradition boards, without becoming cumbersome to use/fill. Production boards shouldn’t be another job, it should be a simple as swinging a hammer.
For a demonstration on the Apiam Production Board contact Dr Jonathan Van Dissel (jonathan.van.dissel@apiam.com.au) or your Apiam swine veterinarian.
