As the Internship Winds Down....

My internship is quickly coming to an end! I can't believe summer has gone by so quickly!

The last few weeks I have not blogged. I'm sorry. I have been SWAMPED with finishing summer courses, working 10 hour days, County Fairs, and finishing my Project Presentation for my internship.

The last few weeks have been the same thing as previous weeks. Daily motions have become a ritual and I'm officially "part of the team" as its not nearly as much information overload as it was the first part of the internship. I have been keeping busy doing daily tasks, described in previous posts, and have been doing a lot of finishing up on my project.

Over the last 10 weeks of my summer I have been recording Gestation, Farrowing, and Breeding data on over 175 sows spanned out over 8 weeks of breeding (weeks 8-14). We are currently on Week 31 and all of my sows have now farrowed. Through recording data daily I compiled a huge Excel Spreadsheet of information. I randomly chose the sows so that I had 10% out of each week/group (about 27 sows per week). I recorded their ID #, Parity #, Gestation Body Condition (Thin, Good, Heavy), 114 Day Farrowing Date, Farrowing Room and Crate, Date Farrowed, Born Alive, Stillborns, Mummies, Total Born, Monitored Time (Day, Night, Unattended), # of Piglets Dried, Split Suckled (or not), Scours (or not), if Sow was Induced, Oxy'd, Assisted, or High Temp, the Day 1 Date (day piglets are given birth shots), Processing Date (day piglets are castrated), All piglet Deaths for every individual sow, any piglets fostered for every individual sow, if sows were nursed on (piglets added on after sow was weaned), Wean Date and # Weaned, Pounds Ate, Total Lactation Days, Pounds Per Day Consumed, Condition at Breeding (Good, Heavy, Thin), Date Bred, Cull Date/Reason, Dead Date/ Reason, and any special notes (Early Wean, Replacement Sow, Step-Wean, Cull After Wean, Cull After Farrow, Injuries, Nurse Sow).

After all of my data was collected I then compiled another massive Excel Spreadsheet of numbers and "stuff" that gave me my final presentation.

I will enlighten you on another day what my presentation shows and what the data I collected concluded. The main focus of the research was to determine feed consumption and its effects on weaning and the sows conditions. We also wanted to see what drying and split suckling of piglets effected, and if it helped or harmed the piglets.

In order for me to not spoil my presentation tomorrow, as I know many of the people who work for AMVC read my blog, I will describe my presentation in detail at a later date!

Thanks Everyone for following me this summer through my internship. It has been a lot of fun to present you all with everything that I have learned and done throughout the summer. It has been a WONDERFUL experience for me, and I am glad to say I worked for such an awesome company.

<3 nbsp="nbsp" p="p" roz="roz">