Are Your Sows in Condition?

Submitted by

Eileen A. Coite

Wayne County

With winter in full swing, one of the most critical goals of any livestock producer is making sure his or her animals are in suitable body condition to brave the cold temperatures. Luckily for our sows, most of them (unless you are an outdoor producer) are tucked away in a nice climate controlled building, equipped with gas heaters. In fact, we’re usually more concerned about sow comfort in the summer months, making sure no one is overheated. Either way, its important to make sure these ladies are comfortable and healthy year-around so they can do their job well.

One of the critical management factors we need to continually evaluate in the sow herd is body condition. Maintaining the ideal body condition score is key to keeping sows fertile, pregnant, or lactating, depending on where they are in the production stage. Of course, it’s a big circle anyway and getting out of condition in any stage will have an impact down the road. Not to mention it will impact the feed bill when sows aren’t in consistent body condition. Having to “bump up” too many feeders can have a tremendous impact on these costs in addition to the delay in her production efficiency, whether it be from delaying her breeding cycle, slowing down her milking ability, or weaning her litter.

So what is ideal? It depends on the production stage she is currently at. If we start with farrowing, the ideal condition would be a 3 to 3.5. Scoring this at farrowing will give her the best potential to stay at or above a score of 2.5 at weaning, which will put her in ideal condition for breeding. A good goal would be to have 80% of farrowed sows scoring at least a 3 at farrowing. Remember, getting sows too fat before farrowing is no good either. Overweight sows can have dystocia (difficult farrowing) problems as well as lactation issues once the pigs arrive. Often overweight sows will have milking difficulties as much as an underweight sow. The chart seen below is widely used across the swine industry for body condition monitoring. Points to evaluate on the sow are the ribs, the backbone, the “H” bones (hip or hook bones) and the pin bones. It is often useful to actually feel the sow instead of just visually evaluating her, and remember that different animals will show condition in different areas, just as we do. Using the Body Condition Score (BCS) chart seen above (Fig 2) will help illustrate this.

The best time to score sows would be at critical times in her gestation, or at times when she is being monitored for something else as well. For example, at breeding is a good time to score her, and again approximately 30 days later at pregnancy checking. Other good times would be at day 80 when we look for visible outward signs of pregnancy. Checking about every 3-4 weeks, usually at these critical stages is a good rule of thumb, since a visible change in her condition is hard to detect on a more frequent basis.

After assessing the sow, adjusting the feed (if needed) is the next most obvious, critical management strategy. So how much should we adjust? First, it’s important to have what’s called a “base feeding rate” during gestation. Usually, this would be somewhere in the 4.5-5 pound range of a corn/soybean meal based diet. If you are a contract grower, your company service person or training staff will be the best resource for recommending the base-feeding rate for your sows. After the base feeding rate has been established, then you can add or take away to meet condition. If the sow were a score of 2, she would need an additional pound added to her ration. For a score of 1 she would need at least 2 pounds more. On the other end of the scale, a score of 4 would merit a reduction of ½ pound, while a score of 5 needs a pound taken away. BCS scoring and adjusting feed is very subjective, and it is critical to make sure the SAME person (or persons) does this job each time! Never send a different person out to condition score and adjust feeders, and each of us may score slightly different. Consistency is the key here.

As always, consult your veterinarian or nutritionist as to the best management system for your herd. If you are a grower with a particular company, you will most likely have guidelines for BCS scoring that the integrator expects you to follow, which take into account the genetics of your sows. The article should serve as a guideline but in no way replace recommendations of your service or training personnel, nutritionist or veterinarian. Information used in this article can be found at: www.thepigsite.com. Search for “Assessing Sow Body Condition”, written by R.D. Coffey, G.R. Parker, and K.M. Laurent, University of Kentucky, 1999 UK Cooperative Extension Service.