A bio-economic simulation study on the association between key performance indicators and pluck lesions in Irish farrow-to-finish pig farms

Table 4 Mean ± standard deviation (SD) and the associated 90% confidence interval (CI, 5 to 95%), minimum and maximum annual gross margin and net profit in farms^a with different prevalence of pleurisy and lung scars on slaughter pigs. Results were obtained during the risk analysis by performing stochastic simulation analysis by Monte Carlo sampling with 10,000 iterations (‘farms’) using the Microsoft Excel add-in @Risk [44]

Variable	€ per year			€ per pig			€ per kg
Variable	LPLSC^b	LPHSC^c	HP^d	LPLSC	LPHSC	LP	LPLSC	LPHSC	HP
Gross margin, €
Mean	978,020	883,579	846,131	51.1	47.2	45.2	0.61	0.57	0.54
SD	73,587	89,923	52,997	1.8	2.1	1.7	0.02	0.02	0.02
5% CI	861,044	740,681	761,039	48.1	43.8	42.4	0.58	0.53	0.51
95% CI	1,101,716	1,035,199	935,183	54.1	50.4	48.1	0.65	0.61	0.57
Minimum	730,977	571,026	657,281	43.7	38.0	38.2	0.53	0.46	0.46
Maximum	1,267,410	1,191,485	1,069,961	58.5	55.3	52.0	0.70	0.67	0.62
Net profit, €
Mean	312,902	218,461	181,014	16.2	11.4	9.6	0.20	0.14	0.11
SD	73,587	89,923	52,997	3.1	4.1	2.6	0.04	0.05	0.03
90% CI	195,926-436,598	75,563-370,082	95,921-270,066	10.1–21.2	4.5–17.9	5.4–13.8	0.13–0.26	0.05–0.21	0.06–0.16
Minimum	65,860	−94,091	− 7836	4.0	−6.3	−0.5	0.05	−0.08	−0.01
Maximum	602,293	526,367	404,843	27.1	24.4	19.6	0.33	0.29	0.23

^a728 sow farrow-to-finish farms with weekly farrowing batches were simulated to represent three different scenarios. A total of 10,000 iterations (i.e. farms) were simulated for each scenario. At each iteration, all stochastic input variables (i.e. biological inputs, feedstuff and pork prices) varied simultaneously by randomly sampling a new set of values for each variable from their corresponding distributions. Additionally, gross margins and net profit were calculated for each iteration
^bScenario 1: a farrow-to-finish farm with prevalence of pleurisy < 25% and prevalence of lung scars < 8% with a wean-to-finish average daily gain (ADG) of 760 g and reaching target slaughter weight at 24 weeks of age
^cScenario 2: a farrow-to-finish farm with prevalence of pleurisy < 25% and prevalence of lung scars ≥8% (LPHSC) with an ADG of 725 g and reaching target slaughter weight at 25 weeks of age
^dScenario 3: a farrow-to-finish farm with prevalence of pleurisy ≥25% (HP) with and ADG of 671 g and reaching target slaughter weight at 26 weeks of age

ISSN: 2055-5660