South West Healthy Livestock Initiative – First Producer Pig Focus Group - 9th Feb 2009
A small group of producers met at the first Pig Focus Group to channel ideas from pig producers of how they would like the millions of pounds of RDA funding made available to the South West pig industry.
Producers representing a wide range of unit types; Organic, Indoor and outdoor, met with Nick Bell from Bristol Vet School and Helen Thoday from BPEX, who sits on the SWHLI board representing pigs, each unit talked about what management changes they had made on their units that had led to significant improvements in production through improved health.
These varied from full scale
changes like de stock restocks and finishing unit destock and clean downs to
smaller but significant actions such as in water medication. Information on how
they made the decisions, where they got the information, and how they managed
the change were gathered.
All this information will be used
to create a questionnaire to go out to all pig producers in the South West. A
cross sectorial workshop to gain more ideas about the channelling of funds will take place
on in Taunton on March 11th. If your pig
unit is in Cornwall, Devon,
Somerset, Dorset, Wiltshire and Gloucestershire and you would like information
on SWHLI or would like to be a part of the next workshop to have your say please
contact Helen Thoday 07973 701202.