Podcast: 37 piglets/sow for Dutch pig farmer

The Real P3 podcast series is a recent initiative, where pork professionals from all over the world are interviewed about challenges and solutions in their day-to-day work.

In this 15th episode of the podcast series, Dr Casey Bradley speaks to pig farmer Pieter Beerens, aged 34, in the town of Moergestel in the Netherlands. Beerens’ farm is home to 350 sows, and in 2020, he achieved 37 piglets per sow with an average born alive of 17.8 with a loss percentage of 9.5% before weaning.

Weaning as many piglets as possible

Beerens has partnered with Swinco, a company that supports and guides international pig farms in the field of farm management and feed programmes. Joining this episode and representing Swinco is Roel van der Bruggen, also in the Netherlands. He and Pieter have been working together for several years and together they sought to find a way for sows to wean as many piglets as possible.

They have learnt some valuable lessons, including why the motherless concept does not work, training piglets to prepare to eat solid feed at an early age by introducing automated feeding with the sow, and the advantages of gradual weaning. Beerens’ results speak for themselves – feed intake before weaning is around 900g per pig.

In the previous weeks, Pig Progress published earlier episodes of the Real P3 podcast series:

• the prologue of the podcast series; the prologue of the podcast series;
• Episode 1: Mihaela Angheluta, Denmark;
• Episode 2: Christine Snowden, Ohio, United States;
• Episode 3: Johan Odendall, Zimbabwe;
• Episode 4: James Lamb, North Carolina, United States;
• Episode 5: Dr Wayne Johnson, China;
• Episode 6: Colin Twomey, Ireland;
• Episode 7: Paul Faris, United States;
• Episode 8: A recap of 2020;
• Episode 9: Angie Krieger, United States;
• Episode 10: Henry Silva, United States;
• Episode 11: Shannon Dierking, United States;
• Episode 12: Sanne Baden, Denmark;
• Episode 13: Brian Strobel, United States;
• Episode 14: Nii Odoi, Ghana.