Ron Ketchem: Sow Productivity Tips | Ep. 70

“What are we doing wrong [on sow death loss]? Are we trying to get too much productivity out of the sows? Are we not developing them right? Is health a part of it? There are a lot of things that we don't know… I'm one of the ones who promoted that we need more standardization of death loss reasons. I looked at some data a while back and hit 67 reasons for calls and deaths and 30% of others unknown. It really didn't tell us anything about why those animals were dying.” – Ron KetchemWhat you will learn:Thoughts on reports;The biggest takeaways on sows;Specific production parameters to look at the most;Key factors;Observations on people and low turnover;Death losses;Trends year by year based on mortality;Farrowing rate;Wean-to-estrus interval;Bump feeding;Replacement rate;Insights on benchmarking analysis;The number of sows per employee.Meet the guest: Ron Ketchem attended the University of Missouri, where he obtained a Bachelor’s Degree in Animal Science and then Master's Studies in Reproductive Physiology and Animal Breeding. Upon graduation, he began working for Kleen Lean, a division of Purina Mills, a genetics company developing AI programs, production training, sales, and marketing. In 2002, Ron and Mark Rix purchased Swine Management Services, LLC, where they’ve grown the business over the last 16 years.