CASE STUDY
One Change in the Service Barn
A new farm, fully financed, running at 75% of its capacity — not because of genetics, feed, or buildings, but because nobody owned service week.
01 — THE SITUATION
A Farm Built for Top 10% Results, Running at 75%
The owner had built a modern unit and wanted top 10% results. What he had was gilt conception stuck at 50–60%, and it had been that way for as long as the farm had records.
Each three-week batch was 90 services, 20 of them gilts. Eight to ten gilts in every batch failed to hold, and conception across the sows was below where it should have been too. The farrowing rooms ran about 75% full, and the empty places carried straight through: nursery 75% full, finishers 75% full.
A farm financed for full output was producing three-quarters of it. An outside expert had been advising on the problem for some time. The genetics, feed and buildings were all good.
02 — WHAT I FOUND
No One Was Running Service Week
I arrived on the Monday of service week and walked out to the service barn with the three staff. There was no farm manager. Before a single gilt was served, all three were arguing about whose job it was.
The argument ended the way it evidently always did: the most junior man, with the least experience, was left to inseminate the whole batch of gilts on his own.
No report had shown that. The records said the gilts were served on the right day. They did not say by whom, or how well.
03 — WHAT WE DID
Supervision, Not a New System
I stayed in the barn and served the gilts alongside him, showing him the routine and the timing as we went. Then we applied the same standard to the other 70 services: attention to detail at every insemination, and one senior person supervising the whole process.
04 — THE RESULT
100% Conception, Same Farm, Same Pigs
All 20 gilts conceived. 100%, against a history of 50–60%. Conception across the sows rose as well.
Nothing had changed in the pigs, the semen, the feed or the building. The only change was that someone experienced was in charge of service week.
On the gilts alone, that is eight to ten more pregnancies per batch. At around 17 batches a year, that is up to 140–170 extra litters a year from the same sows, buildings, staff and overheads.
05 — THE TAKEAWAY
Why This Never Shows Up in a Spreadsheet
The cause was not disease, genetics or nutrition. Nobody was in charge, so the most skilled job on the farm was done without supervision. That is a management problem, and a management problem does not appear in a spreadsheet.
You have to be standing in the barn on the right morning to see it.
For a lender, this is the point: a farm financed for full output was producing three-quarters of it, and no report showed why.