Carlos Piñeiro

Introduction:Benchmarking has been widely practiced worldwide in the swine industry to improve farm management and productivity. Best practice benchmarking is defined as identifying those practices and processes associated with superior efficiency and performance. In the best-practice benchmarking for breeding farms, measurements in high-performing and ordinary farms have been used to provide valu ...

IntroductionThe present work addresses the use of data in improving decision making and farm productivity, one of the aspects that has generated more interest in swine production in recent years. In the current review, the limitations of data management and recently developed strategies in this sector have been revised, together with the need for new technologies and their use in the evolution of ...

BackgroundPrimiparous sows (PP) have higher nutrient requirements [1, 2] and fewer piglets born than multiparous sows (MP) [3]. Usually, PP sows are bred before they reach mature body size and when the back fat levels are still limited and often times below the recommendation of 18.0–23.0 mm at first insemination [4]. Part of the nutrient intake of a PP sow during the reproductive cycle is s ...

IntroductionDuring the last decades, the use of data by farmers has been limited. Most of the systems used were simple and mainly focused on the management of farm tasks, with limited or no capacity of analysis. Integration of data from different devices or farms was also difficult, and there was little applied knowledge on the value of data in the strategic decision-making. Another ...

IntroductionLivestock production in confinement facilities results in gas emissions such as ammonia (NH3), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O) and carbon dioxide (CO2). In pig production, NH3, CH4 and N2O are products of manure decomposition while CO2 is primarily a product of animal metabolism. Ammonium (NH4+), under acidic or neutral pH conditions or NH3 at higher pH levels, contribute directly t ...