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Prairie Swine Centre is an affiliate of the University of Saskatchewan
Prairie Swine Centre is grateful for the assistance of the George Morris Centre in developing the economics portion of Pork Insight.
Financial support for the Enterprise Model Project and Pork Insight has been provided by:
Effects of Supplementation of a Novel Bacterial 6-Phytase on Mineral Digestibility and Plasma Minerals in Lactating Sows
Posted in: Nutrition, Pork Insight Articles by admin on June 11, 2013 | No Comments
The abstract for a study on P absorption in sows when supplemented with bacterial 6-phytase. Supplementation was found to increase P and crude protein digestibility, as it also does in grower pigs.
Sows Mobilize Body Protein in Late Gestation when Protein Intake is Limiting
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The abstract for a study looking at varying levels of energy and crude protein in diets fro sows in early and late gestation. If insufficient crude protein is provided (below 13.6%), sows will mobilize body protein to provide amino acids for the fetuses.
Energy Intake Affects Lactating Sow Metabolism More Than Lysine Intake
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The abstract for a study testing varying levels of lysine and energy for sow diets in early and late lactation. Energy provided appeared to be more important to sow body condition than lysine, but lysine should still be at least 1%.
The Use of Spray-Dried Animal Plasma to Mitigate Negative Effects of Deoxynivalenol (DON) in Late Nursery Pigs
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The abstract for a study testing the effect of using activated clays and/or sprayed-dried animal plasma in DON contaminated feed on feed intake. It was found sprayed-dried animal plasma was the most effective at reducing the effects of DON.
Feed Additives and Feeding Strategies to Replace Antibiotics
Posted in: Nutrition, Pork Insight Articles by admin on June 10, 2013 | No Comments
During weaning piglets are susceptible to enteric diseases causing diarrhea and reduced growth performance, a problem which is often dealt with by formulating feed with antibiotics and additives like blood plasma. However, public concerns with antibiotic use, and human safety concerns for the use of blood plasma have led to the study of alternative additions for the weaning diets. Pharmaceutical levels of zinc oxide can reduce the occurrence of diarrhea, but have a possible environmental impact from waste. Weaning gastric pH is higher than grow-finish gastric pH as they transition to solid food, so organic acids can lower the pH and reduce intestinal pathogens. Probiotics are microorganisms that are thought to benefit gastointestinal health, although studies showing no benefit exist, that may be due to dose, strain, diet, and facility sanitation. Prebiotics can also aid the microbiota in the intestines, and can be obtained from fermentable carbohydrates like wheat bran or sugar beet pulp, or from treating the feed with enzymes. Antibodies can reduce pathogen-caused diarrhea, but it is the most useful if the pathogen is known rather than just a general treatment. Sow milk is higher in nucleotides than starter diets, so supplementation may be able to help. However, responses vary, probably due to the presence of other active compounds in nucleotide containing products. Finally, reducing the crude protein can help reduce diarrhea in piglets, but amino acid supplementation should be added to meet nutritional requirements. As antibiotics and blood plasma come under scrutiny, it is useful to have alternative feed additives to help piglet intestines adjust to solid feed.
Managing Energy Intake and Costs of Grow-Finish Pigs
Posted in: Energy, Nutrition, Pork Insight Articles by admin on June 9, 2013 | No Comments
The cost of feed has been rising and while research has focused on amino acid requirements and cost, research on the cost of energy itself has been behind. Energy can come from starch, fat, protein or fibre, but the efficiency varies depending on which source is used to obtain the energy. Energy is used by the pig for either maintenance or growth. Maintenance energy requirement calculations look at Fasting Heat Production, but it is important to remember additional costs like temperature regulation, immune challenges, and social stressors. Growth can be achieved through protein or lipid deposition and, while their efficiencies are similar, lean accretion is much more efficient than fat accretion due to the water requirement. Still, lean pigs are not necessarily the most cost effective if they are gaining weight slowly, as they will require extra barn time and maintenance energy. There are variations between herds in ability to maintain growth rate with lower energy density foods. Generally, herds that are able to increase feed intake to maintain energy intake will maintain growth, and will be desirable continuing into the future.
New NRC (2012) Nutrient Requirements of Swine
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The NRC released their new edition of Nutritional Requirements for Swine in 2012, and has made updates to reflect the increase nutritional demand of modern pigs. Like previous editions, the values are based off of mathematical models, and the guide comes with software to run the models on at-home computers. Models were created for grower-finish pigs, gestating sows, and lactating sows. Energy utilization has become even more important due to rising feed costs, and NRC emphasizes the use of net energy in determining energy utilization. Literature reviews provide data for dietary energy of specific ingredients, which differs from the French or Dutch systems. NRC also confirms that energy requirements listed do not take into account environmental and animal variables, and that more accurate energy requirements can be predicted by also using the observed animal performance in a facility. The updated guide has a more complex method of predicting amino acid requirement that uses basal gut losses, skin and hair losses, and minimum urinary N loss. The use of co-products in feed often increases fibre, and as a response NRC published the changing threonine requirement when fibre increases in a diet. As well, the models show the changing amino acid requirements throughout the different stages of gestation and lactation, and information for intact males. Some of the limitation of the NRC values are that it does not incorporate nutritional history, or between-animal variation, and cannot be used for cost-benefit analysis. Overall, NRC has addressed many if the current and upcoming nutritional changes, and remains a valuable tool to estimate nutritional information and requirements.
Feeding and Barn Management to Improve Feed Conversion
Posted in: Nutrition, Pork Insight Articles, Production by admin on March 28, 2013 | No Comments
Kenpal Feed Products Inc. shares options to help improve feed conversion. Included in these are having proper storage and maintained equipment for feed, properly adjusted drinkers, good ventilation, avoiding overcrowding, and shipping at the appropriate weight to maintain feed efficiency.
New Tools For Precision Feeding
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Precision feeding can decrease costs due to feed wastage, and improve animal performance by ensuring they are receiving the correct amount of nutrients and energy for their health and environment. PorcTechTM is one of the current technologies that can calculate feed information based on a database of ingredient analysis using AutoCalcTM, and nutrient demands of pigs at a production stage. Observing performance of pigs on farms will help the accuracy of predictions. As well, processing and use of by-products can be taken into account.
Nutrition of Pregnant Sows
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A one phase diet during gestation will not be able to provide the correct energy and nutrients to sows. During the beginning of gestation sows are still repairing their own tissue from the previous weaning, and during late gestation energy and amino acid requirements are higher as both are allotted to fetal and mammary gland growth. As well, gilts will have higher requirements than older sows because they are still growing. The NRC nutritional model uses the conceptus (and associated structures) and maternal protein requirement pools. The conceptus pool has stable requirements until day 70, and then rapidly increases. Maternal protein deposition depends on energy intake, age of the sow, and other time-dependent factors. The GfE evaluates nutritional requirements in a similar way to the NRC, but absolute values for amino acids may differ due to using different patterns. As well, the energy requirement is different because it uses a factorial approach. Nutritional experiments have found increased requirement for lysine, threonine, isoleucine, and trytophan between early and late gestation. Determined and modeled requirements generally agree, although there can be some difference in the final values possibly due to the time-dependent factors. Amino acid requirements increase more than energy requirements in late gestation, so a single phase diet is unlikely to be able to provide sufficient amino acids. A solution to this is to have a high and low amino acid diet, and to mix at a ratio based on the stage of gestation and parity. Phase feeding allows more accurate levels of nutrients and energy to be provided, and can save costs by reducing overfeeding.