Man-Power Requirements for Management of Animals in An Organized Swine Farm

Abstract

The present study was conducted to know the amount of labour force required for various activities involved in management of animals such as routine operations like cleaning of pens and feeding, and periodic operations like breeding, new born management, weighing of adult stock, vaccination etc. at the centre of the ICAR - All India Coordinated Research Project on Pigs at Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh. The total time spent on cleaning operations was 1.68 ± 0.03, 1.52 ± 0.03, 0.32 ± 0.01 and 1.59 ± 0.03 man-min./animal, while that on feeding operations was 0.88 ± 0.04, 0.59 ± 0.01, 0.11 ± 0.00 and 0.59 ± 0.01 man-min./animal/day in the farrowing, boar, grower and dry sow/gilt pens, respectively. The routine operations took 2.56 ± 0.07, 2.11 ± 0.04, 0.43 ± 0.01, 2.18 ± 0.04 man-min./animal/day, respectively in the case of farrowing, boar, grower and dry sow/gilt pens. The labour time spent on hand mating and Artificial Insemination was 32.75 ± 2.51 and 47.60 ± 1.49 man-min./mating, respectively. The newborn management activities as a whole required 61.07 ± 3.76 man-min./litter or 7.63 ± 0.47 man-min./piglet in the farm. The total time utilized for weighing activity of adult pigs was 9.59 ± 0.28 man-min./animal, and that for vaccination was 1.24 ± 0.26 man-min./animal. Performing the periodic activities required about 95.06 ± 6.53 man-min./litter. Based on the results, it was concluded that 2 labourers working 8 hours per day are sufficient for smooth running of a 100 + 5 swine unit.