Evaluation of the effects of nursery depopulation of the profitability of 34 pig farms.

The financial impact of nursery depopulation was assessed on 34 pig farms by constructing a partial budget model to measure the profitability of the nursery production. The model measured margin over variable cost and used production data generated from a previous study; it assumed that fixed costs remained constant throughout the study and that feed cost, weaned pig cost and market price per nursery pig also remained fixed. The mean margin over variable cost per sow on the 34 farm after nursery depopulation was Pounds 116. Thirty-two of the farms showed reductions in this cost, ranging from Pounds 20 to Pounds 408 per sow, in the 12 months after nursery depopulation compared with the previous 12 months. Of the two farms which did not show an increase in profitability, one showed no change and the other showed a net loss of Pounds 8 per sow. The sows' serostatus for porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus infection was monitored but there was no significant difference between the margin over variable cost per sow of the seropositive (Pounds 130) and seronegative (Pounds 170) herds.