Batch management” (BM) is the way of practice used in swine farms to organise different categories of pigs into groups which are handled the same way in a certain time. BM allows reducing the number of occasions when pigs are moved and limits the frequency of situations when pigs are mixed. This facilitates the separation of pigs grouped according to the different age and consequently hampers the spread of infections from older to younger pigs.
“Batch farrowing” refers to the system of batch management implemented in the organization of farrowing, in which all sows of one batch farrow in few days within one week. This allows the farrowing room to be thoroughly cleaned and disinfected between different batches of sows installed. Such system implies that sows are inseminated at the same time and finally weaned in one day. The interval in weeks between different batches to be bred indicates the type of BM, i.e. one week, two, three weeks etc.