Slowing pig growth during COVID-19, models for use in future market fluctuations

Abstract

COVID-19 resulted in significant challenges for swine production in the United States and globally due to temporary limitations of harvest capacity at swine processing facilities. • The U.S. swine industry worked collaboratively to discuss, evaluate, and disseminate strategies to reduce the growth rate of pigs in order to avoid pigs growing past a stage where processing facilities could no longer accept them. • A combination of management and nutritional approaches has been extremely effective in restricting pig growth rate in response to the COVID-19 pandemic— namely feeding reduced protein diets, increasing stocking density, and ambient temperature, among others.