Early Warnings in Pig Production Help Prevent Costly Losses

Production problems rarely appear overnight.

Whether the outcome is declining growth, reduced performance or increasing mortality, production losses are often the result of small changes that began much earlier.

Animals continuously respond to changes in their environment by drinking, eating, growing and behaving differently.

The challenge is recognising these changes before they begin affecting production performance.

As livestock production becomes larger and more complex, many producers are looking for better ways to identify developing challenges earlier.

Continuous monitoring helps improve visibility into these early changes by providing ongoing insight into production conditions throughout the day.

Why production problems are often difficult to detect

Many factors can influence production performance.

Examples include:

• Changes in water consumption
• Reduced growth rates
• Environmental stress
• Ventilation issues
• Emerging health challenges

Initially, these changes may be small and difficult to observe.

When production teams manage multiple barns or large numbers of animals, subtle deviations can easily go unnoticed until performance has already been affected.

Continuous monitoring is valuable because it reveals trends that are difficult to identify through routine inspections alone.

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Why are small production changes so important?

Learn how early production changes can provide valuable insight before performance begins to decline.

→ Read: How to Detect Health Problems Earlier in Pig Production and How to Detect Health Problems Earlier in Poultry Production

Mortality is often measured too late

When producers evaluate production performance, mortality is usually reviewed as a result.

A mortality rate is reported at the end of a batch, after pigs have already been lost. The challenge is that mortality is often treated as an outcome rather than a process.

In reality, mortality rarely occurs suddenly.

It is often the final consequence of changes that started days or even weeks earlier. By the time mortality becomes visible in production reports, the opportunity to prevent losses may already have passed.

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Production losses rarely begin with mortality.

Learn how continuous monitoring helps producers identify problems earlier.

→ Read: How Continuous Monitoring Enables Earlier Detection of Production Problems

Ammonia (NH₃) is one of the most significant environmental and welfare challenges in modern pig production. While it is a natural by-product of livestock systems, excessive ammonia emissions can negatively affect animal health, worker safety, and the surrounding environment. Understanding how ammonia is produced — and how it can be managed — is essential for sustainable, efficient pig farming.

What Is Ammonia and How Is It Produced?

In pig production, ammonia is primarily formed when urea and uric acid in manure and urine are broken down by bacteria. The enzyme urease, naturally present in feces, catalyzes this conversion, releasing ammonia gas into the air.

Key factors influencing ammonia formation include:

• Temperature: Higher temperatures accelerate bacterial activity and volatilization.
• pH: Ammonia release increases when manure pH is above 7.5.
• Ventilation: Inadequate ventilation allows ammonia to accumulate in barns.
• Manure management: Frequent removal and cooling of manure reduce emissions.

Learn more about the benefits of automated climate and ventilation in pig production.

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Impacts of Ammonia in Pig Housing

1. Animal Health and Welfare

High concentrations of ammonia irritate the pigs’ respiratory tract, leading to:

• Reduced lung function and increased susceptibility to respiratory diseases.
• Lower feed intake and growth rates.
• Increased stress and reduced overall welfare.

Concentrations above 20 ppm are considered harmful to pigs, and levels above 10 ppm are generally discouraged in modern facilities.

2. Worker Health

Ammonia exposure can cause eye and throat irritation, headaches, and long-term respiratory problems in farm workers. Maintaining clean air is therefore not only an animal welfare priority but also a matter of occupational safety.

3. Environmental Impact

Once emitted into the atmosphere, ammonia contributes to acid rain among other things. This has downstream effects on soil, water quality, and climate. The pig industry and other industries are under increasing regulatory pressure to reduce ammonia emissions as part of broader sustainability goals.

4. Production Performance and Efficiency

Ammonia doesn’t just affect welfare — it has a direct impact on productivity. Chronic exposure to elevated ammonia levels has been shown to:

• Reduce average daily gain (ADG) and feed conversion efficiency (FCR).
• Delay the time to reach market weight, increasing feed costs per kilogram of gain.
• Lead to uneven growth within groups, complicating management and marketing.

Studies indicate that pigs exposed to ammonia concentrations above 25–30 ppm may experience growth rate reductions of 5–10%, depending on duration and housing conditions. Maintaining low ammonia levels therefore supports both animal health and economic performance.

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