Pig weighing systems case study

Learn how pig producers are using weighing systems, to reduce labour costs and increase accuracy.

A commercial growth trial with a producer was undertaken to determine the value of individually identifying pigs throughout their life.

The additional weight added to pigs by weighing has clearly covered the cost of additional staff time. As weighing is often a low-priority job compared with essential stock tasks, staff were engaged in the process and examining data from weighing, in order to determine how marketing and/or weighing strategies might be optimised.

Visual image analysis on weight monitoring systems  

A prototype portable handheld visual image analysis (VIA) pig weight monitoring system was evaluated for use in measuring weight and growth rate, predicting lean meat yield, and providing data for feed management.

Published results demonstrate that VIA can:

• Measure the weight (with errors under 5%) and growth rate of pigs
• Predict lean meat yield
• Provide data for feed-management models designed to control growth rate and fat deposition

Various systems are now available commercially, offering potential handheld weight assessments. In the case of those models tested, it was recommended that there was calibration with traditional weighing equipment to ensure accuracy.

Exploring different systems to weigh pigs 

A race system was developed for ease of handling, speed and minimal stress on staff and pigs. The persistence of spray marks on pigs was also explored. The design has since been optimised for the producer’s site and is being used as part of their system.

An interface has been developed to harvest data from scales and third-party ultra high frequency (UHF) readers, either handheld or fixed in scales, has also been. As technologies progress, scale manufacturers are increasingly building in links between radio-frequency-identification (RFID) readers and the weighing systems, requiring no additional user involvement, this is known as ‘plug and play’.

Results

Further development of weighing systems to reduce labour costs and increase accuracy of data has been completed on our Strategic Farms as part of the Precision Pig programme. These systems are made up of a traditional weighing crate, with the addition of a low frequency (LF) panel reader linked to a weigh head. The system can analyse weight trends and variations in its own cloud-based software but also offers a link to the herd-management software used on farm. Watch our video demonstreation of race and spray markers.