Jiangsu Binhai: High-standard breeding boar stations are favored by the market

The No. 1 document of the Central Committee in 2021 pointed out that it is necessary to improve the long-term mechanism for the stable and orderly development of the pig industry, strengthen the construction of the breeding base and the breeding system of fine breeding, and orderly promote the industrialization and application of biological breeding. As the largest county-level socialized pig supply base in Jiangsu Province, what innovative measures does Binhai County Livestock Improvement Station have in building a modern pig breeding system and promoting the development of the pig breeding industry? A few days ago, our reporter conducted in-depth on-the-spot interviews, and what he saw and heard was refreshing.

As early as the 1970s, Binhai County livestock improvement station began to use the food stations of various communes to study pig breeding technology, and by the late 1980s, the improvement station responded to the call of the state to build a standardized centralized sperm supply center (breeding boar station) for fine breeding pigs in counties and districts, but due to shortage of funds, backward semen preservation technology, insufficient transportation conditions, imperfect sperm production team and other common prominent problems faced by the national pig breeding industry, it has not improved.

In 2006, the opportunity came. With the help of the national pig breeding subsidy project, under the guidance of the Jiangsu Provincial Animal Husbandry Station, binhai County Livestock Improvement Station has built 3 sperm supply stations and 13 sperm supply points in accordance with the infrastructure construction standards of county-level sperm supply stations (points), and has taken the lead in building a relatively complete pig breeding service network in the city.

At this time, breeding boar stations across the country have also sprung up, and by 2013, there were 127 in Jiangsu Province alone, and the pig breeding industry ushered in a critical period of transformation from quantitative expansion to qualitative improvement. Gu Weifang, director of the Binhai County Livestock Improvement Station, said that the whole station adheres to the core competitiveness with high standards, and promotes the improvement station to become a member of more than 10 standardized and large-scale boar stations in the province.

In order to achieve the goal of expanding the scale of breeding, improving the level of breeding, and stabilizing the quality of semen, binhai County Livestock Improvement Station implements standardized breeding of breeding boars, and has built a regional breeding boar farm covering an area of 28 acres with a maximum design scale of 450-600 heads, and the pig houses are equipped with cooling facilities such as top insulation layer, wet curtains, fans, and spray devices to avoid excessive temperature in summer affecting semen quality. At present, Binhai County Livestock Improvement Station is actively exploring the use of Internet of Things technology to achieve new breeding modes such as automated environmental monitoring, intelligent temperature regulation, and digital information feedback.

Improving the standardized management system of breeding boar stations is another guarantee for the supply of fine breeds at binhai county livestock improvement stations. The station insists on introducing high-quality breeding boars with production performance measurement from national core breeding farms, and implements quality and safety control over breeding boar breeding and semen collection, testing, preservation and transportation. At the same time, we will strictly standardize the daily operation of staff, continuously improve the professional skill level of technical personnel, and timely improve the management system related to artificial insemination technical services.

"Good breeding is the key to improving the core competitiveness of the pig industry. To accelerate the promotion and application of pig breeds, it is necessary for the joint efforts of animal husbandry departments at all levels in the province, core enterprises, and scientific and technological platforms to solve the constraints of breeding boar breeding and promotion as soon as possible and achieve more technological breakthroughs and model innovations. Yuan Rijin, chief animal husbandry veterinarian of the Department of Agriculture and Rural Affairs of Jiangsu Province, said.

Artificial insemination can effectively improve the reproductive performance of sows, reduce the number of breeding boars, prevent inbreeding and the spread of diseases, but short semen preservation time has always been a constraint. After years of research, binhai County Livestock Improvement Station has found that the addition of traditional Chinese medicine to the feed of breeding boars can effectively extend the storage time of semen and enhance the high temperature resistance of semen. Nowadays, the Binhai County Livestock Improvement Station has successfully achieved a pig semen preservation time of up to 7-10 days, effectively ensuring the use of cross-regional farmers to purchase high-quality semen.

In the prevention and control of major animal diseases such as African swine fever, binhai County Livestock Improvement Station will send semen to a special agency every 3 days for disease detection in addition to the implementation of fully enclosed management of pig houses and non-contact transmission of semen. Each breeding boar in the base is equipped with electronic ear tags, after arriving at the sperm collection room, the staff holds the terminal equipment, records the data by scanning the ear tags, and each semen corresponds to the breeding boar one-to-one, and can view its health status and sperm collection records at any time on the mobile phone or computer end, forming a traceable production and circulation supervision system.

Improving pig production capacity requires comprehensive measures, and in the case of healthy breeding, shortening the growth cycle is an important content. Gu Weifang said that usually it takes about 170 days for a pig to grow to 200 kilograms, and the piglets produced by using the semen produced by the base can reach 200 kilograms in 158 days and 230 kilograms in 165-170 days. Not only that, thanks to the promotion role of the whole station in the construction of the county pig breeding and promotion system, in 2020, the fertility rate of artificially inseminated sows in the county increased from 85% in 2013 to 94.7% at present, and the average number of litters increased from 11.7 to 12.3.

"The importance of fine semen to the improvement of pig breeds and the improvement of production capacity is being recognized by more and more breeding enterprises and large breeders." Gu Weifang said that the introduction of market "living water" to stimulate the vitality of development, the station and a national core breeding farm in Shanghai reached a long-term cooperative relationship, the other party is responsible for regularly providing high-quality measurement of breeding boars and the construction of the national sales network, the station is responsible for the county's township sales co-construction point management, the promotion of artificial insemination technology of fine breeding pigs and pig breeding training services.

At the entrance of the Kanbei supply point in Binhai County, the reporter met Wang Chunqiang, a large pig farmer from the neighboring county of Jianhu County. "My family bought breeding pig semen here last year, and the piglets are not only good in size and grow fast, but also basically do not use drugs, and the key semen prices are still cheap!" The staff of the sperm supply point told reporters that farmers have preferential treatment for the purchase of semen at the sperm supply point, and the price is slightly higher for those sent to other provinces. This site alone sells an average of 200 bottles of semen on the spot every day, and 500-600 bottles are sent out by courier. In order to vigorously promote artificial insemination technology, binhai County Livestock Improvement Station also set up a professional artificial insemination team of more than 30 people earlier to provide "door-to-door" services for pig farmers. "Desferens skill is equivalent to pig breeding as sowing hoeing land and farming, which is an indispensable link." Gu Weifang said that in recent years, the station has continuously improved the method of spermization and simplified the steps of spermization, and Dai Xunjun, a farmer in Guanzhuang Village, Jiepai Town, Binhai County, said that compared with the previous complex vas deferens operation, disposable vas deferens is now used, which is convenient to operate and the success rate of sperm is almost 100%.

Nowadays, binhai County Livestock Improvement Station has 236 breeding boars in storage and measurement, and has gradually built a service system that combines production and demand, improves the system, improves the network, and distributes efficiently, and has achieved the strategic goal of inter-county and inter-provincial sperm supply, with an annual sales of nearly 180,000 copies of high-quality room temperature semen.

Zhang Zhifeng, Li Xiaochen, reporter of Farmers Daily and China Agricultural Network, Chen Bing