Some UK Producers are Building New . . This Unit Builds New Every Year . .
"We Must Keep Investing"
My article in the last issue of PHC highlighted the lack of confidence shown by many UK producers to invest in new buildings whereby they simply "make do and mend." This is 
especially the case if the owner is close to retirement, as quite a few in the UK are. UK pig prices currently are at a very high level – 180p/kg -- so that producers are actually in the black. Whether this manifests itself in new buildings remains to be seen. For some it will be chance to pay off borrowings, or as a prelude to selling up and leaving the industry. Fortunately there are some enlightened producers who are committed 500 per cent and plan to be in pigs for many years to come.
The guys that own Birchwood Farms Ltd, located near Penrith in Cumbria certainly tick that box and the company has put a new building up most years. Next year some 50 year old poultry sheds will be bulldozed and replaced with more finishing accommodations.
Cumbria is better known as the English Lake District, an area of outstanding natural beauty, with high mountains and deep lakes. Uplands mean sheep and cattle rather than pigs and hence large pig units are pretty rare in this part of England, which is a bonus as far as bio-security is concerned as the nearest other unit is 15 km's away.
The pig business originally belonged to a company called Cavaghan and Gray, who also had a bacon factory in the locale, with the farms providing bacon pigs for the factory. Ia
n and Mike Sanderson, along with a family friend bought the business in 1994. At that time the business had 900 sows and just produced slaughter pigs. Now the company has three sites, producing bacon weight slaughter pigs, plus FI gilts for PIC. The company also has 218 acres of arable (18acres were bought just this year), growing cereals for pig feed. The business employs 12 staff, with two working just on the arable section. Sadly the farms were slaughtered out due to FMD at the turn of the century after which they re-stocked with PIC High Health/Minimal Disease lines, as the units are so isolated, and have been producing breeding stock since 2002. Maintaining high health status is very much a bonus, as the farms are very healthy, just suffering a slight scour problem. The only feed treatment is adding zinc oxide to the feed after weaning. The only vaccination given is one against Circovirus, at weaning.
Birchwood has an interesting feeding policy, based on home grown cereals and co-products. A balancer is brought in from national feed compounder BOCM and a well known nutritionist formulates the diets, delivered to the farm via email. All pigs over 18 kg are on wet feed, but the sows and gilts are fed dry rations. These are in meal form, brought in from BOCM but interestingly formulated by the Birchwood nutritionist. Putting wet feeding equipment in on a farm is a major investment plus operating this type of kit is not for everyone, as valves can jam, feed can freeze in the pipes in winter etc.
However, real savings can be made by feeding whey, brewers grains, biscuit meal and the like and it's no coincidence that many of the successful producers that I know in the UK are all co-product feeders. Of course, supply and demand comes into the equation – if demand is excessive, then cheap co-products suddenly become expensive.
Transport is getting increasingly costly, however Cumbria has a lot of dairies, so whey is plentiful and close at hand. I always remember being at a conference many years ago. A learned academic was extolling the virtues of feeding wheat feed to sows, as it was very cheap to buy. When it came to questions, a local farmer, in his 70s stood up and thanked the speaker for his talk. He paused and then said knowingly "now then young man, there's 200 pig farmers here today. If they all go home and tell a friend today to feed wheat feed as it's very cheap, when tomorrow dawns all of a sudden wheat feed isn't cheap anymore ..." Of course today there is the software around to produce least cost formulations and if co-products get too expensive Birchwood could simply buy in meal and feed that as liquid feed – still giving advantages of less waste through lack of dust. Co-products can be quite corrosive to concrete and so the slats near the feed troughs are protected by a solid polymer concrete panel.
Dry sows are meal fed twice/day. Sows are fed either by dump feeders or through ESFs and are kept in static groups. Farrowing sows are also meal fed, up to a maximum of 10-12kg daily. 
The intention, when funds allow, is to install wet feed equipment from the UK based Hampshire equipment company (DanAgri). The farrowing pens are all fully slatted with each pen having a heat pad. Weaning takes place at four weeks, on a Thursday, with pigs averaging eight kg. Sows are fed the lactator ration from weaning through service, with chaser boars being used to stimulate heat. Each sow gets two inseminations, generally on Monday and Tuesday using pre-lubricated sponge tipped catheters sourced from PIC. Weaners are split by sex into groups of 50 and are kept in the same group right through to slaughter.
The weaner house was built in 2011, with pigs staying there till 14 weeks of age. Slaughter pigs are sold through the Yorkshire Farmers' marketing group and are slaughtered across the country in Malton, N.Yorkshire. Deadweights are currently 83-64 kg (14 mm P2 contract) but there is talk of the factory taking deadweights up to 99 kg. This is quite 
surprising given half the pigs will be entire and the Danes and Germans would certainly be concerned about a taint problem with such heavy pigs. Given the benefits in terms of DLWG & FCR, higher deadweights, especially for entires, will be very good news for UK producers though.
Birchwood has been a PIC multiplier since 2002 and gilts are finished on straw and solid floors, in ACNV buildings. Given all the slatted accommodation the units produce a lot of slurry, which neighbouring farms are happy to take.
Output Data
Pigs born alive / litter 12.8
Reared 11.2
Farrowing Index 2.35
Pigs/ sow/ yr 26
Many units are getting more born-alives, but remember Birchwood has GP pures (to breed the F1s) and these are less prolific.
Post weaning mortality is running at 3.5 per cent which is first class, given that many units after PMWS have never got post weaning mortality back to levels we used to see in the 1970s and 80s.
BPEX has a campaign to get UK producers in line with their continental brethren, namely to get over two tons of pig meat per sow per year. Around 30 per cent of UK producers can tick that box, with Birchwood certainly being up there and if the higher deadweights come in they could well be soon hitting 2.5 tons/sow.
We've had a lot of gloom and doom in the UK industry of late, but it's really really heartening to see that with some pig folk the cup is always half full – and never half empty -- and long may that continue. •
— By Norman Crabtree