MealMeter

You’ve invested in new gilts for your sow farm. You take the time to acclimate the incoming gilts in the GDU. You spend money to vaccinate, build immunity, feed. You spend time training, choosing, building trust. Genetics prove they are the right gilt to be successful in the sow herd. Yet, when it comes to their P1 production, you’re scratching your head why they didn’t perform as well as you expected. And you get nervous because you recently read that how a gilt performs on her first litter affects her lifetime production.

Then you remember the transition to the breeding barn.

We’re told gilts need time to get used to the new environment of the breeding barn and their individual stall. But what we’ve learned is it’s not the environment; it’s how they are fed.

Gilts have been eating like a finishing hog their entire lives up until that point, ad-lib throughout the day. Then we move them to their own stall and drop a large amount of feed once or twice a day and expecting them to eat their ration in a short amount of time before the water is turned on or the feed turns stale. Naturally, these gilts go off feed right around the time we plan to breed her. And we get frustrated when later she’s not performing as well as we had hoped.

The problem is we are expecting these gilts to eat like sows.

The MealMeter feed dispenser converts a drop feed tube setting into an ad-lib feeder and is used as a transition tool to avoid limited feed intake days. Incoming gilts quickly learn how to work the MealMeter because it is operated with her intuitive rooting movement. With the MealMeter, gilts are back to full feed Day 1-3 and stay in good condition, ready to be bred.

Not only will the MealMeter increase your P1 performance, but because gilts start with a productive litter, they have an increase likelihood to have a long, productive life on the sow farm.

Newly weaned sows returning to the breeding barn are dealing with major environmental, physical and hormonal changes. They are transitioning from lactation diets and eating ad lib throughout the day back to the individual stall where they are again expected to consume all their feed in a short amount of time before water washes it to their neighbor. Unsurprisingly, this is an area typically with a lot of feed waste.

Maybe she dealt with an illness in lactation or she simply milked a large litter. Whatever the reason may be, she was productive on her last litter but is entering into breeding under conditioned. You hope she’ll gain back some condition in gestation, but you know that likely won’t happen. So it’s just a matter of time before she’s culled although she performed well on her last litter.

Under conditioned sows are often high performing animals and it’s frustrating when her productivity can’t continue simply because of her body condition. That’s where the MealMeter comes in.

Often, under conditioned sows simply need extra time and feed to gain back condition. The MealMeter gives her both of those without the feed waste. By putting her in front of a MealMeter, she has all day and evening to consume the fresh feed and water she needs to get her ready to be productive in the next parity.

Feeding sows ad-lib in farrowing is critical to maintain condition and successfully milk large litters. The MealMeter feed dispenser accomplishes this for sow farms while at the same time eliminating feed waste. With the MealMeter “self-regulating” system, there is no need to adjust feed flow or monitor each sow’s feeding curve. The MealMeter System in Lactation saves staff time because it involves minimal management and “self-cleans” with its cutting-edge design. By allowing her freedom to eat when she wants with a clean bowl, sows are able to reach their full milk production potential and head back into the breed barn prepared for their next cycle. The MealMeter system transforms the way we feed our sows in lactation.

This low-tech option is easy to install and very simple to manage. Click the link below to learn more.