Reducing Animal Health Costs

Posted in: Production by admin on January 1, 2009 | No Comments

The focus of this paper is on how to deliver return on investment on animal health
products. The ultimate goal of our industry is to have a long term health
management strategy that delivers lowered input costs with corresponding
improved performance, and thus better margin than the industry norms. In no particular order of importance the following points are worth spending some time reviewing if your business is to achieve this long term goal. Measure, Analyze and Make Decisions Based on Opportunity Cost. Be Critical of Product Technical Information such as mass marketing of product technical results as all herds are different. Focus on the Primary Pathogens; the Big Bugs, not the Little Bugs, Monitor product usage and Management of Lightweight Pigs in Your Herd.

The nutritional value of expeller-pressed canola meal for grower-finisher pigs

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Expeller-pressed canola meal (EPCM) contains more residual oil than solvent extracted
canola meal. The EPCM might be an attractive feedstuff for swine,
but has been poorly characterized nutritionally. In this experiment it was found that the implications are that EPCM provides energy and amino acids (AA); however, average daily gain (ADG) was reduced 3
g/d per 1% inclusion of EPCM inclusion in diets formulated to equal net energy (NE) and
standardized ileal digestible (SID) AA. Thus, inclusion levels of EPCM in swine diets should be targeted to
ensure an expected growth performance.

Effects of social interactions on empirical responses to selection for average daily gain of boars

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The objective of this study was to investigate the relative importance of social effects on response for total genetic value from selection of boars for ADG. Records of 9,720 boars from dam lines (1 and 2) and sire lines (3 and 4) from Pig Improvement Company (PIC, Franklin, KY) were analyzed. Data were from 4 test farms over a 4-yr period (2000 to 2003). It was determined that further study of the effects of social interactions in different environments is needed to determine situations in which effectiveness of selection for total genetic value can be improved by incorporating social effects in models and indexes. An anonymous reviewer has suggested that this model for direct and social effects not be used in the future for several reasons. One reason is the complete confounding of fixed pen effects and environmental social effects and near confounding when pens are modeled as random effects. In this study pen effects were not included in the model. Another reason is one the authors and others have informally discussed; with many
pigs in a pen, some pigs may never interact with other pigs.

For more information the full article can be found at http://jas.fass.org/

The effect of feeding crude glycerol on growth performance and nutrient digestibility in weaned pigs

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Increased utilization of biofuel coproducts, such as crude glycerol, will allow livestock producers to source alternative feedstuffs and mitigate high grain prices. Crude glycerol may play an important role in meeting the dietary energy needs of pigs as biodiesel production expands. The present study indicates that crude glycerol can be included up to 8% in replacement for wheat in diets for weaned pigs, without reducing growth and feed efficiency.

Just What We Didn't Need

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Adding insult to injury, the outbreak of HlNl Influenza A virus has left the U.S. pork industry reeling from yet another exaggerated media frenzy. The good news about the bad news is that the staffs at the National Pork
Producers Council (NPPC) and the National Pork Board reacted quickly and effectively the minute news of swine-tagged flu symptoms hit the airwaves, newspaper and website headlines around the globe. While we are being grateful, we
would do well to glance over our shoulders and try to imagine another, even more serious scenario — one in
which we were facing the discovery of a foreign animal disease, such as foot-and-mouth disease (FMD), within
our borders rather than dealing with a novel influenza virus. In that context, perhaps the past few weeks provided a dress rehearsal for something much, much bigger.

Advanced swine manure treatment and utilization in Braz

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The aim of this paper is to present some recent advances in
swine manure management research and practices in Brazil, and
assessing their technical and economic performances. It was found that because of environmental concerns for the disposal of large
amounts of swine manure generated under animal confinement,
Brazilian swine producers have several technological challenges.
These challenges depend on several factors, like soil/plant support
capacity, land availability, and producers investment capacity for
adoption of advanced manure treatment technologies. The development
of new advanced manure treatment technologies that
can solve several environmental problems linked to manure disposal,
are compatible with the new reality of Brazilian’s industrial
swine production, which has emerged as a major competitor in the
international market. With the adoption of advanced technologies
like enhancement of solid–liquid separation using flocculants and
treatment processes (SMTS), economical considerations need to
be done, particularly in Brazil and other developing countries that
do not have government subsidies like the Europe Union or United
States.

Performance of a Pilot-Scale Air Sparged Continuous Flow Reactor and Hydrocyclone For Struvite Precipitation abd Removal From Liquid Swine Manure

Posted in: Environment by admin on | No Comments

The objective of this research was to test a pilot‐scale air sparged tank reactor (ASTR) and the ASTR in
combination with a hydrocyclone (called the pilot‐scale ASTR‐hydrocyclone system) on two swine manure slurries for
struvite‐based (MgNH4PO4‐6H2O) phosphorus removal and recovery. It was found that in a typical Iowa deep-pit swine production facility (10,000 head/year) the annual cost of struvite‐based phosphorus removal using the struvite-based phosphorus removal system would be approximately $8.88/finished pig or $0.035/L manure slurry treated ($0.134/gal). This cost often exceeds producer’s profit margins and is not currently economically viable.

For more information the full article can be found at http://asae.frymulti.com/toc.asp

Feeding conjugated linoleic acid partially recovers carcass quality in pigs fed dried corn distillers grains with solubles

Posted in: Meat Quality by admin on | No Comments

In this experiment the effects of CLA on growth and pork quality were evaluated in pigs fed DDGS. The data concludes that decreased carcass firmness with DDGS feeding is not reflected by changes in lipogenic gene expression. Feeding 20% or more DDGS to finishing swine decreases bacon leanness, but inclusion of 0.6% CLA in the finishing diet can partially reverse these effects.

For more information the full article can be found at http://jas.fass.org/

Government support, transfer efficiency, and moral hazard within heterogeneous regions in Canadian Agriculture

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The objective of this paper is to estimate three measures of transfer efficiency that are of concern to policymakers. These are (1) the capitalization of support into farmland values, (2) the rate of income stabilization, and (3) the effect of past government support on the variance of income. Results show significant differences between Canadian regions in the effectiveness of stabilization. There is a significant inverse relation between government support payments and farm income across all regions. However, for the Maritime Provinces there is a noticeable lower rate of stabilization, as well as an unexplainable upward trend in support. Results for the third objective show that the variance of income is significantly correlated with past levels of government payments. This indicates that government support is motivating producers to make risky decisions, thus creating a moral hazard problem in the Canada agriculture sector.

Animal genetic resource trade flows: Economic assessment

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This paper reports on an analysis of international trade in animal genetic resources from the 1990′s to 2005. It offers an assessment of the major directions, trends, and implications of trade flows, using data from the United Nations COMTRADE database (United Nations Statistics Division, 2007). This information was augmented by discussions with a number of breed societies on their views concerning breeders’ access and utilization of non-U.S. genetic resources. Our analysis of the data leads us to doubt the usefulness of a treaty on animal genetic resources, access and benefit-sharing agreements or other broad policy initiatives as a vehicle for promoting conservation of
threatened breeds or species, and also as a vehicle for improving the welfare of poor livestock farmers in
developing countries. We believe that conservation measures should be pursued urgently, without any explicit link to a treaty or erection of trade barriers. We further believe that efforts to improve the well being of traditional livestock keepers and their farming systems are worthwhile and should be pursued without linkage to broad policy instruments that are ill-suited to meet the needs of the targeted populations. Furthermore, we fear that the financial burdens of negotiating an international agreement and supporting a secretariat and administrative superstructure might reduce the funds available for needed conservation efforts.