Dr. Russell Fent, Swine Technical Team Director
As a producer, having a strong relationship with your nutritionist can make a world of difference for your operation. Your nutritionist should be an important part of your on-farm team. To help you make the best decisions for your herd, your nutritionist needs to understand how your operation functions from top to bottom—what your goals are, what your mill can do and how your team works.
You should be hearing from your nutritionist often. They should be more than a name in your inbox. There should be an open dialogue that allows the producer to share as much as they can about the farm so that the nutrition plan can be well-tailored to meet the farm’s specific needs. While that open dialogue is key, they should be more than that. Your nutritionist should be another set of eyes for your operation, and they should be helping you monitor performance and efficiencies.
Trust is Essential with Your Nutritionist
Your nutritionist should be someone you can trust. While they may work for or with a particular nutrition company, their motivation should be to help your operation succeed. A good nutritionist knows that trust is earned, so they should be keeping an open dialogue with the producer, asking questions and sharing as much info as they can to help the operation reach optimal performance. If a nutritionist has information such as nursery closeouts, finishing closeouts or sow herd reproductive data, they provide vital information that can help a nutritionist fine-tune diets based on a farm’s actual performance.
A producer should expect quick and easy access to their account manager and nutritionist.
Aging Diets Can be a Result of Poor Nutritionist Communication
One pitfall of not having consistent access to a nutritionist looking out for you is diets that haven’t been updated in a long time. Having the same diet for several years may seem convenient for producers. Constantly changes factors (nutritional technologies, ingredient costs, genetics and marketing conditions) make it is essential to have regular diet reviews and reformulations to stay up-to-date with the latest research and technology.
Ralco Wants to be Your On-Farm Partner
The team of experts at Ralco wants you to succeed. They understand that healthy pigs—from farrow to finish—make for a successful operation. Contact usto find out how Ralco can help you develop the right solutions for the specific needs of your operation.