Custom Web-based feed program for healthy pigs

With the higher cost of feed, providing the proper nutrition and managing feed budgets for finishing pigs is key to being profitable. mentor, a web-based, customizable growth modeling and feed budgeting program designed to help you improve the accuracy and precision of your feed budgets to deliver the proper nutrients to finishing pigs, and subsequently lower feed costs.

Web-based nutriton modeling and feed budgeting program

To learn how you can save money by utilizing a multi-phase program click here or on the mentor logo to view the demo. For more information about how mentor can help you, please contact Vita Plus at 1.800.362.8334.

More about mentor

mentor can be customized based on sex, group size, starting and ending weight and feed delivery increment.

Customized curves defining lysine requirements, feed conversion, lean gain, etc. are generated using Farm-Specific performance and carcass data from your pigs.

mentor improves feed budgeting accuracy by allowing real-time budget adjustments for death loss, pig movements and non-standard feed delivery amounts.

mentor utilizes multiple diet phases (up to 19 diets) to target the specific nutrient requirements of your pigs throughout the growing period, thereby reducing the costly overfeeding and underfeeding of nutrients.

Proper feed budgeting allows for feed use and cost estimates on a per pig and per group basis. This also allows you to project ingredient usage amounts and costs of all ingredients used in your nutrition program.

Testimonials

Dewey Bucher, Co-Alliance LLP, Indiana

Swine and Animal Nutrition Division Manager
Northwind Pork finishes 120,000 pigs per year

Northwind Pork has recently gone over the 50,000 head mark (20,000 finished and 30,000 currently on feed) of pigs fed using the mentor program. Wean-to-finish feed conversions have averaged 2.44 for the last 20,000 head of closeouts. This is a solid tenth and a half improvement over the previous 20,000 head not on the mentor program. Even though herd health has improved dramatically over the last 8 months, I still feel that the mentor program has played a significant role in this improvement.

As intakes increase during the grow-finish cycle, it makes a tremendous amount of sense to me to change the diets every 7-10 days to help maximize performance and minimize cost. With the recent run-up in commodity prices Vita Plus's mentor program hit the market at the perfect time for us!

Mike Kassmeyer, Quality Plus Feeds, Iowa

Feed Budget Manager
Southeast Iowa Pork finishes 20,000 pigs per year

The mentor feed budgeting program has been a very valuable tool for Southeast Iowa Pork. mentor allows us the flexibility to vary delivery amounts, while automatically adjusting the budgeted diet amounts on the go. With that said, it still allows Southeast Iowa Pork to take full advantage of the 26 diets that the program selects from to minimize feed expense by not over feeding nutrients. mentor also lets you pick from different diet menus and enter our own ingredient pricing so you are able to evaluate different diets and get an estimated cost of gain and ingredient usage per group.

One option that I really like is that I can put in any starting and ending pig weight. mentor then generates a budget to follow. We have a variety of starting weights and I just punch in the weight and it generates the diet menu. mentor also allows us to change pig inventories along the way. This is important to me because when we overstock our wean-to-finish buildings, I am able to change the inventory when we thin the building, and the feed budget is adjusted. Another thing that is nice about mentor is it has an area for comments, which allows me to track the medication protocols or any other special instructions I need to note. The budgets can be archived and printed, which we always use as a checks and balances system when we generate close outs on a group; this is a valuable tool!

The mentor feed budgeting program has been a very user-friendly program. It does not take long to build a comfort level in operating it. I would recommend mentor to anyone who is serious about keeping a tight track of their feed budgets and feed expenses.

Dan Ohnstad, Ag Partners, Minnesota

Swine Specialist
Ag Partners manages 60,000 finishing pigs

As I manage the production flows and feed budgets for 60,000 finishing pigs each year, I can really say mentor makes a difference. mentor helps manage a smoother feed budget, especially since I can recalculate the feed budget when delivery increments are different than what the budget originally called for. We are now feeding closer to the pigs' requirements because the feed budget is always adjusted. Also, set up is easy and the program is user friendly; its very simple to use.