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Industry Partners
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:
Immunocastration in Swine: a Practical Approach
Posted in: Pork Insight Articles, Production by admin on March 30, 2011 | No Comments
Immunocastration can offer many benefits to producers, and Brazil share notes on their experience and recommendations. The vaccination team should be composed of the right people for the job with proper training, knowledge, and skills. The team should have clear tasks and a schedule, be provided PPE, monitor the assessment points, and be aware of how to proceed if self-injection occurs. For facilities, separating pigs by sex makes the vaccination process easier, but may result in multiple source batches. The vaccination is convenient in that timing of the first dose is flexible. The facility should have proper infrastructure to handle animals while vaccinating. The producer should monitor animals to find any animals that may have been missed, or any vaccinated animals that develop abscesses. The supply pharmacy should have sufficient cold and monitored refrigerators, carry different sizes of bottles, have contingency stock, and have specific applicators. The slaughterhouse should be phased into handling immunocastrated animals, as they may require new task assignments and need to consider the destination of the testicles. National legislature needs to be changed to allow boars into the food system, and government veterinarians should be consulted. Finally, ways to make immunocastrated boar products appeal to the customer are through the increased animal welfare, strict food safety assurance, and improved sensory evaluations.
Looking Beyond Production Benchmarking
Posted in: Economics, Pork Insight Articles, Production by admin on | No Comments
Benchmarking is a continuous process that allows for comparison and improvement when used properly. Benchmarking can be overwhelming due to the amount of data, but can be useful when both production and financial information is considered. For production, mortality rate for pre-weaning and finishing, the pigs produced for size of farm, and hog sales are some useful figures. For example, the top 50% had similar born alive/litter, weaned/litter, and weaned/sow/year. Financial information shows that the top 50% receive more per pig, and also pay less for each pig produced. The increase in net profit appears to be mostly due to a decreased feed cost per pig. Comparisons between provinces can show how competitive a region is. When attempting to benchmark, it is important to consider what to measure, who to benchmark against, and the time period.
Looking Beyond Production Benchmarking
Posted in: Economics, Pork Insight Articles by admin on | No Comments
Benchmarking can help producers compare their results to others in the industry and make improvements, but it requires continuous comparisons and accurate interpretation. The statistics for farrowers show the lowest cost producers have low mortality and non-productive days. For finishers, the lowest cost producers have low mortality and culls, and formulate and review diets to be economical. Benchmarking may help when dealing with loaners, as improvements and meaningful comparisons can be shown.
Energy and Ventilation Management Issues in U.S. Pig Buildings
Posted in: Energy, Pork Insight Articles by admin on | No Comments
The swine barns in the Midwestern US are typically ventilated by curtain sided system (CS), or through tunnel ventilation (TV). The project Reducing the Environmental Footprint of Swine Buildings has set out guidelines to retrofit these buildings to a more efficient system. These systems use around 70% of the energy needed by the barn. Some of the general suggestions to reduce energy use include fan maintenance, switching to more efficient fans, properly sized minimum ventilation fans, proper temperature set points, proper heater set points and sizing, insulation and draft reduction, and reduce wind pressure on fans. Specifically for CS and TV barns, bubble wrap insulation can be used for walls, end walls and exhaust fans should be insulated, pit exhaust fans can be relocated, deep pits should be pumped twice a year, the L.P. Gas Heater settings can be changed, and the fewest fans possible for winter minimum ventilation should be used. For CS barns, the mechanical ventilation capacity can be increased to also save energy. Cooling systems in CS and TV barns are often sprinklers and circulation fans, but evaporative cooling pads or evaporative misting of air can be used as well.
Ventilation Management
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Air quality has an impact in pig performance and worker environment, but over-ventilation can result in wasted energy expenditure. Heating should be provided in cold climate, otherwise air quality will drop if ventilation is lowered, or pig performance will drop as they divert resources to maintaining body temperature. However, heat can often end up being wasted due to oversized fans, too high of a fan speed, high temperature settings, or an oversized heater. Ways to save energy while maintaining the ventilation and heat balance are to run more fans at a lower setting, to allow a second fan to engage prematurely, to replace old fans, and to maintain and manage existing systems to keep them running efficiently.
Energy Management
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Energy prices have been volatile and increasing, and are expected to continue increasing, so energy savings can help producers reduce costs. Energy use in barns is mainly through heating, lighting, ventilation, and pumps and motors associated with other tasks, like feed transport. Ventilation fan motors represent the largest energy requirement, and improperly set temperatures can result in wasted heat from overrun ventilation. Fluorescent bulbs or T8 fixtures can significantly reduce energy requirements for lighting, as can replacing creep lights with electric heat mats. Drafts should be sealed, and insulation sufficient and upgraded if it is not. An energy audit can help identify which are most problematic, and additional ways to reduce energy use. Alternative options to reduce energy include tree windbreaks, solar walls, and heat exchangers.
Reducing Distress in Swine: When, Why and How
Posted in: Pork Insight Articles, Welfare by admin on | No Comments
Pain is often hard to identify due to evolutionary strategies in prey species to hide it, and once identified it is difficult to objectively measure. In the past, few products were available for agricultural animal pain control, and little differentiation was made between tranquilizers and pain control. Providing pain control to animals can have an economic benefit through improved healing, and an ethical benefit through improved animal welfare. For sows and gilts, tranquilizers can be used around farrowing for extremely agitated animals, manual aid and oxytocin can be used for long farrowings, and the treatment of lameness with analgesics are ways to reduce suffering. Suckling pigs should be aided around the time of birth, and any lameness, scour, or injuries treated. In nursery pigs, scour can be treated, meningitis may be helped by an anti-inflammatory, and lameness can be treated and the pig isolated to a recovery pen. Pain in finishing pigs can be handled by isolation to a recovery pen, and shipping out if no improvement is seen. Often the reduced stress and ability to rest in a hospital pen can reduce suffering caused by pain, and a veterinarian should be consulted for any available treatment or pain control.
Euthanasia
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Euthanasia is a necessary part of swine production, so it is important that it is conducted with skill and minimal animal suffering. When the animal is insensible it can no longer feel pain or distress, and it is important to confirm this stage is reached. Acceptable mechanical means of euthanasia include blunt force trauma (>12kg), non-penetrative captive gun (>12kg), or captive bolt gun (all weights). It is important for staff to understand the process of death, which includes insensibility, tonic (rigid limbs), and clonic (paddling) steps. Gas euthanasia using carbon dioxide is also acceptable for all weights, but from practical aspects can usually only be used for suckling and nursery pigs. One of the most important aspects of euthanasia is staff training. The employee should know when euthanasia is necessary, how to competently complete it, and do so in a respectful manner.
Maximising the Value of Feedstuffs
Posted in: Nutrition, Pork Insight Articles by admin on | No Comments
Alternative ingredients may be able to provide feed costs savings, but with the increased use of them the price is also rising, so precise formulation should be used. Predicting energy values of alternative feed ingredients remains a problem, as values can vary between sources and between batches. As well, the digestible energy content may be different than what is actually available to the animal (net energy). Digestible amino acids need to be considered, and synthetic amino acids can be used to supplement if the ingredients are lacking. Fermentable fibres can also increase the need for supplemented threonine. Non-starch polysaccharides (NSP) are degraded through fermentation in the gut, so NSPase enzymes can be added to break down NSPs and increase digestible energy. Phytase can be added to feed to release phytate-bound phosphorous and make it available to the pig, so phosphorous supplementation can be reduced. Some ingredients have naturally occurring phytase already, and additional levels can be lowered or not needed. Feeding fermented feed can be beneficial, but is not possible for dry feeds. For liquid feeding, fermented ingredients can provide reduced phytate levels, can increase beneficial intestinal microbials, and possibly benefit the immune system.
Effectiveness of non-penetrating captive bolt (Zephyr) and restraint for euthanasia of piglets from birth to 9 kg
Posted in: Pork Insight Articles, Swine Innovation by admin on March 11, 2011 | No Comments
This study set out to test the effectiveness of a non captive penetrating bolt gun. The study consisted of two test, the first involving 100 piglets who were less than 72 hours old. After being stunned the pigs were analyzed for breathing, heart beat, leg spasms and other signs to rate effectiveness. 10 pigs were further assessed to investigate the skull fracture and brain hemorrhage. All the pigs were rendered insensible, leg spams lasted for an average of 229 seconds, and time to full cardiac arrest was 444 seconds. Five piglets had to receive a second treatment as they has a sustained heartbeat for over 10 minutes. The second test involved 5 pigs each in four different weight classes. The pigs were put on a collection of medications to minimize there pain. Only one pig required a second treatment because of rhythmic breathing, all other pigs were absent of breathing immediately. Leg spasms lasted 148 second and full cardiac arrest was reached in 371 seconds. One pig had be euthanized using an alternative method because of a sustained heartbeat. Although brain damage in the anesthetized piglets was less severe than that of the conscious neonates, the Zephyr still effectively induced cardiac arrest in all but one piglet.