MODIFICATION OF THE UNN SWINE ENTERPRISE PLANNING AND MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE

Swine enterprise is one of the best options to choose when investing in livestock production, but has been suffering a big neglect due to lack of awareness and ignorance on the part of investors in most developing countries including Nigeria. Everything about swine enterprise depends on how they are managed as they do not demand much financially for their labour, feeding, housing and equipment selection and for other basic needs as compared to other livestock enterprise. Therefore, due to the many good attributes of swine over other livestocks, especially being highly prolific and returns yielding almost immediately after establishment, the enormous benefit from investing in swine enterprise can not be over-emphasized, hence, the software development was necessitated. This project focuses on modifying an existing pig enterprise planning and management software earlier developed in the Detaprtment of Agricultural and Bioresurces Engineering of the University of Nigeria. The program was first  done in January, 1994 through the use of the Visual Basic programming language which did not allow farmers to make a selection of weaning period, lacks a graphical user interface and did not allow for batching system. In view of these deficiencies ,  a  new software (MATLAB®) has been introduced into the work so as to cater for these challenges. The new software has successfully been used to introduce a graphical user interface , batching system and varied weaning periods to the  enterprise planning and management software  and has satisfactorily computed the parameters giving useful results. The computer program needs a number of factors such as the number of sows gestations period, farrowing period, average weaning and conception intervals etc. for its execution to obtain varying results. It is worth noting that as the number of weeks weaning is practiced was decreased the farrowing interval obtained was decreased and the number of farrowings per sow per year was increased and vice versa, also as the sow herd was increased the number of farrowing pens required was also increased, and vice-versa, assuming all other parameters were kept constant for either case. Thus, with good selection of all the factors required in the execution of the software, effective farm planning and management for swine enterprise can be achieved with less drudgery and time waste, and as such deserves a full attention and support from both the Government and patriotic individuals of good will.