Positively impacting the carcass by adding fat to the diet

Posted in: Meat Quality, Nutrition, Pork Insight Articles by admin on July 7, 2017 | No Comments

Fats and oils have traditionally been used to increase dietary energy levels for the early weaner phase and for pigs raised in warm climates. Adding fat/oil to the diet can improve feed to gain, reduce manure output and also reduce dust levels in the barn. The correlation between saturated fat intake and coronary heart disease in humans has also prompted inclusion of polyunsaturates into pig diets to increase levels of ‘healthy’ fatty acids in pork. Enhancing pork’s fatty acid profile also has potential for value-added marketing and improving pork’s market share. The benefits of feeding high polyunsaturate levels have, however, been counterbalanced by problems with soft carcass fat, oxidative instability and in the barn, high fat/oil diets can bridge and block feeders.

The effects of CLA have often been contrary to expectations. Generally fats/oils are expected to increase carcass fat, and polyunsaturates should generate soft fat, and a reduced backfat level shouldn’t be coupled with increased marbling fat. Work thus far demonstrates that individual fatty acids have the potential to effect carcass composition and pork quality differently and continued research in this area may prove quite valuable as trends towards branded products and paying premiums for lean content and quality continue.

Positively impacting the carcass by adding fat to the diet.

Factors Driving the Improvement of Average Daily Gain

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At its simplest, growth rate is affected by two factors, namely feed intake and the efficiency with which that feed is utilized for growth. Assuming feed efficiency remains constant, increasing feed intake will increase growth rate; conversely, if feed intake remains the same, improving feed efficiency will improve growth rate. A multitude of intrinsic and extrinsic factors affect growth in the pig. It is only by addressing each, individually and as a whole, that animal growth can be optimized. What is clear is that pork production, while achieving extraordinary gains in the past 4 decades, has yet to fully utilize the tremendous genetic potential of the pig. This is apparent by the variation in performance which occurs among groups of pigs within a barn, and by the diversity of results experienced among producers. It is equally clear that the financial returns which will accrue from achieving higher levels of performance are substantive.

Factors Driving the Improvement of Average Daily Gain

Determining the threonine requirement of the high-producing lactating sow

Posted in: Nutrition, Pork Insight Articles by admin on July 6, 2017 | No Comments

To minimize sow body tissue breakdown, the threonine requirement was found to be 37, 40 and 39 g total threonine/d (29, 31 and 30 g Dthr/d) for parity 1, 2 and 3+ sows, respectively. To maximize litter growth, the threonine requirement was found to be 37, 39 and 38 g Tthr/d (28, 30 and 30 g Dthr/d) for parity 1, 2 and 3+
sows, respectively. The maintenance requirement for threonine in the sow is 41 mg Tthr/kg BW^0.75 (Pettigrew, 1993). The threonine requirement for litter growth in this study was 14.3 g Tthrlkg litter growth. Using these requirements for maintenance and litter growth, pork producers can calculate the threonine requirement of lactating sows on their farms.

Determining the threonine requirement of the high-producing lactating sow

Diet Manipulation to Reduce Nutrient Content in Swine Manure

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Reducing particle size below 700 µm proved effective in altering N excretion patterns, while phytase proved very effective in improving the digestibility of P in the diet. The addition of carbohydrase showed little evidence of reducing total N or P excretion. A reduction of dietary protein content will reduce excretion of nitrogen in feces, but especially in the urine. With dietary fermentable fibre, part of the
urinary excretion of nitrogen can be shifted toward excretion in feces. Reduction in amount of P in feeds is effective in reducing P in manure. The success of the management strategy for reducing P excretion is dependent on an accurate estimate of P requirements for pigs. A better understanding of the P requirements might enable diet formulation closer to the pig requirements to reduce the amount of P in manure. An improvement in P utilization is economically beneficial to pork producers, and is also important for sustainable swine production. The reduction In excess nutrients and odour emissions while sustaining high levels of pork production is critical for long-term survival of a globally competitive pork industry.

Diet Manipulation to Reduce Nutrient Content in Swine Manure

Nutritive Value of Lentils in Pigs – Monograph

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Research conclusions

1. As an ingredient containing, on average, 41% of starch and 27% of crude protein, lentils are appropriate for swine nutrition
2. Lentils provide 3, 71 S kcal of digestible energy per kg dry matter, which is comparable to the energy provided by fababeans and slightly lower than that provided by field peas
3. Lentil proteins have a high lysine content, comparable to that of soybean meal, and in threonine but are deficient in sulphur .containing amino acids and in tryptophan
4. The freezing oflentils has no effect on their digestible energy value in pigs but adversely affects the apparent ileal digestibility of their amino acids
5. Due to its low apparent digestibility, threonine might also be a limiting amino
6. Pigs can tolerate at least 30% oflentils in their diets

Nutritive value of lentils in pigs

Field peas for pigs – Monograph

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The overall objective of the project is to generate reliable information on the nutritional value of field peas in pigs and on the effect of processing, in order to demonstrate to pork and feed producers that field peas of varying quality support excellent performance in starter and growing/finishing pigs.

Researchers concluded that the contents in crude protein and starch, the two main components of pea seeds, of the samples collected from farms of Saskatchewan, are quite variable and justify further studies aiming to establish a relationship between composition and energy value. They hypothesize that most of the energy value can be explained by the dietary fibre content but more information is required, namely in terms of non-starch polysaccharides, and also of physical properties of the dietary fibre fraction.

Field peas for pigs

THE FUTURE OF SOW HOUSING: STALLS OR GROUPS

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One of the more controversial aspects of pig production is the housing of gestating sows. Gestation stalls have been identified as one of the three most restrictive practices, along with battery cages for hens and crates for veal calves, throughout the history of the modern animal welfare movement.

This speech outlines pros and cons of four different group housing systems:

• Floor feeding
  • Low cost
  • High space requirement
  • Increased agression
• Trickle/Bio-Box feeding
  • Lowered aggression
  • Moderate space requirements
  • High cost
• Individual feed stalls
  • Meets individuals nutritional needs well
  • Increased labour costs but decreased space and input
  • minimal agression
• ESF
  • Greatest control of feed intake
  • Ability to monitor animals intake directly over time
  • High cost
  • additional training

THE FUTURE OF SOW HOUSING

VARIATION IN PIG PERFORMANCE: A CHECKLIST TO IMPROVE PERFORMANCE

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Variation in bodyweight has a large impact on the profitability of pork production in western Canada.

Variation is measured as either standard deviation or coefficient of variation.

Reasonable targets for CV are 20% of weaning weights, 12 to 15% for nursery exit weights and I 0 to 12% for weight at first pull from the finishing barn.

The number of animals that must be weighed in order to accumtely estimate CV is greater than that required to estimate the avemge weight.

More animals must be weighed at younger ages, because variation as a proportion of the mean is much higher.

If the CV for bodyweight in the feeder barn is above I 5%, reducing it is a reasonable possibility, and probably includes increasing access to feed and water and addressing health problems. if present.

If the CV in growout is less than 12%. then the best strategy is to management variability, as reducing it will be very difficult.

VARIATION IN PIG PERFORMANCE

ADDRESSING VARIATION IN FEED QUALITY: WHAT TO DO WHEN FEED QUALITY DECLINES

Posted in: Economics, Nutrition, Pork Insight Articles by admin on July 5, 2017 | No Comments

Variation in ingredient quality has become increasingly important for the pork industry, because minimizing the differences between actual and calculated quality of finished feed helps to achieve a predictable performance. Diets are formulated using least cost diet formulation, and safety margins have been included to guarantee minimum dietary nutrient levels. These margins could be reduced if ingredient quality is monitored properly. Analyses or predictions of nutrients with the greatest impact on diet cost or performance (energy, amino acids) is the most effective way to manage variation in ingredient quality, and will likely provide a high return on investment.

ADDRESSING VARIATION IN FEED QUALITY

Tallow and Energy for Grow-Finish Pigs -Monograph

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This experiment was conducted as a follow-up to a previous experiment conducted at the Prairie Swine Centre, which showed that pigs are able to achieve equivalent performance across diets of quite differing energy concentration. These results flew in the face of conventional wisdom, which suggests that increasing dietary energy concentration, notably through the additional of fat, will result in faster growth. This experiment was therefore conducted to re-evaluate this question, and determine if increasing dietary energy concentration would improve pig performance. The experiment was also designed to evaluate the impact of dietary energy concentration on carcass quality and on the uniformity of growth.

The results of this experiment, conducted on a commercial piggery, confirmed that higher energy diets
can be successfully fed without an adverse effect of carcass quality. Despite the fact that the DE content
of the diet increased by 10%, there was no impact on backfat thickness, lean yield or carcass index.
Indeed, the higher energy diet tended to increase loin thickness. Based on performance, carcass quality and financial return, the lower energy feeding program was once again equal to, or superior to, the higher energy programs. In this experiment, the same energy level was fed throughout; it would appear from the data that the most effective feeding program would be one that employs higher energy levels in the growing and early finishing phases, perhaps up to 80 kg, with lower energy levels used thereafter. This would take advantage of the improved growth on the higher energy diets observed during the first 6 weeks in this experiment, and save money by lowering energy during the final phase of growout, when energy did not elicit a growth response. Since 56% of the feed consumed by pigs on this experiment occurred beyond 80 kg bodyweight, substantial savings could accrue from feeding the lower energy diets after 80 kg.