On-Farm Welfare Audits

Posted in: Pork Insight Articles, Welfare by admin on April 1, 2008 | No Comments

Animal welfare improves productivity, but has also been increasingly demanded by the consumer. Having a reliable Quality Assurance Scheme based on on-farm welfare audits allows governments to enforce legislation, producers to objectively monitor conditions, and marketers to inform consumers on the animal welfare for specific products. Welfare requirements can be based on natural living, which bases welfare on the type of production system used, or biological functioning, which focuses more on the animal health. The Five Freedoms are UK welfare guidelines, and introduce mental welfare through requiring freedom from fear and stress, and to express natural behaviour. Practical welfare audits need to be performed quickly, and may not always be able to incorporate complex mental welfare assessments. Direct animal-based, and indirect resource-based measures are mainly used in actual audits. Some of the indirect measures taken in an audit are the feeders and drinkers per pig, air temperature, minimum space allowance, and pharmaceutical use. Some of the direct measures commonly used are body condition scores and skin lesion scores for a sample of the herd. Freedom to express normal behaviour is a hard welfare requirement to measure. The presence of vices and stereotyped behaviour can indicate it is not being met, and the need for environmental enrichment is starting to be recognized. QA schemes are now a requirement for the UK market, but specialized QA schemes, like Freedom Food introduced by the RSPCA, have additional welfare requirements. The EU has recently developed a new welfare project that includes focus on animal-based measures, and it is currently in a pilot-stage. Good welfare standards benefit everyone in the industry, and on-farm audits are useful to assess animal welfare.

Canadian Experience with Feeding DDGS

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Corn DDGS is a co-product of ethanol production, and has high energy, protein, and fiber. It can be used in livestock feed, but the nutritional content can vary widely and this needs to be accounted for when formulating diets. Reasons for the varying quality include corn quality, yeast use, fermentation and distillation variation, drying process, amount of solubles blended, the facility, and pre-factioning. Despite the high protein content, the amino acid balance in DDGS is poor and the usable lysine percent can vary greatly, so additional supplementation may be necessary. A rough indicator of amino acid content is the colour, as darker colours indicate burning or over-drying. Mycotoxins are a concern in DDGS because the processing concentrates nutrients, so a low level in the starting corn can become a significant problem in the final DDGS. Corn DDGS can be included up to 20% in swine diets, although fat firmness decreases over 10%. Flowability can possibly be an issue with DDGS in storage facilities, and clumps can form which will inhibit proper mixing. If the nutritional content is monitored, and storage and fat firmness considered, corn DDGS can be included in swine diets and provide some cost savings.

Canadian Experience with Feeding DDGS

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DDGS is a byproduct of ethanol production, and feeding it to livestock can provide a sustainable disposal method and offset some of the cost increase of grain for farmers. DDGS is a source of energy and protein, and trials were run in Ontario to see the effect feeding up to 20% had on pig performance, and if there were any economic benefit.  The trials found no change in performance as measured by average daily gain, feed intake, feed efficiency, and carcass characteristics. However, additional literature searches showed that feeding 30% DDGS increased feed efficiency, and other studies show decreased ADG and feed intake with increased DDGS inclusion.

Adverse effects induced by short hairpin RNA expression in porcine fetal fibroblasts

Posted in: Ontario Pork, Pork Insight Articles by admin on March 20, 2008 | No Comments

RNA interference is a recent, gene silencing technique that could be extremely valuable in studying gene function, treating diseases, and developing novel animal models for human diseases. Here, we investigated the feasibility of applying shRNA-mediated RNA interference in fetal fibroblasts for silencing of the myostatin gene and investigate adverse effects of RNAi. We report that up to 97% silencing of myostatin mRNA was achieved using shRNA constructs in transiently and stably transfected fetal fibroblasts (p < 0.05). At the same time we also demonstrate that high level of shRNA expression resulted in 10- to 1000-fold induction of interferon responsive genes (OAS1, IFN-b) (p < 0.05). In addition we also report novel adverse effect of shRNA expression in stably transfected cells—interference with microRNA processing/ transport which led to 500-fold increase in the level of miR21 precursors (p < 0.05). Reduction of these side effects will be essential to obtain long term stable RNAi silencing.

Dietary means to enhance gut health, growth performance and well-being of newly weaned pigs

Posted in: Ontario Pork, Pork Insight Articles by admin on March 10, 2008 | No Comments

Poor gut health has always been a problem for pork producers. Traditionally anti-biotics were used to improve gut health but the use of anti-biotics has recently come under scrutiny so alternative methods to improve gut health have come into demand. This study looks for some alternative methods to improve gut health. The first trail involved a diet enhanced with zinc and copper and a control diet, this test consisted of 180 piglets, and they were analyzed for growth performance, circulating cytokines levels and gut microbiota. There was no difference found in growth performance between the two groups, there was no difference in circulating cytokine levels other than cortisol being higher in pigs in the test diet. Enhanced growth performance of the newly weaned piglets fed high dietary Zn and Cu during the first two weeks post-weaning appears mediated via changes in gut microbiota as well as a reduced cortisol response following an immune challenge. The second study involved feeding 129 piglets a diet of galactomannan oligosaccharides (GMOS) or a control diet and then they were tested on growth performance, immune response and intestinal microbiota.Results showed that inclusion of GMOS at 0.3% appeared to alter the compositions of both ileal and colonic microbiota. These results suggest that dietary GMOS was able to increase humoral immunity and alter the compositions of microbiota of newly-weaned pigs, while reducing feed intake and growth performance during the first week post-weaning.

The Welfare of Sheep: Review of Recent Literature

Posted in: Pork Insight Articles, Welfare by admin on February 7, 2008 | No Comments

Sheep production has generally been free from criticism on welfare issues as most sheep are extensively managed and lambs remain with their mothers from several weeks before weaning. Sheep production is a relatively minor portion of animal agriculture and has not attracted as much attention as other species in North America. In regions of the world in which sheep represent a major industry, several welfare issues have been the focus of recent research.

Castration and tail docking are procedures used in several species, but are of particular relevance to welfare studies of sheep as each may be performed using several procedures. Shearing, with its restraint and use of noisy, hot shears represents a common and repeated fear evoking procedure throughout the industry. The handling, transportation and slaughter of sheep is also a major welfare concern.

This article reviews the recent literature with respect to welfare issues in sheep.

The Welfare of Poultry: Review of Recent Literature

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Poultry production represents a very large and diverse. There are many facets of production, and hence many areas that are potential concern for the welfare of the animals involved. These areas may include, among others, housing of laying hens, beak trimming, toe clipping, spent hen disposal, molting of laying hens, feed restriction, lighting programs, growth rates and resulting effects of chicken and turkey broilers, transportation, pre-slaughter management, slaughter, and handling (Mench and Siegel, 1997).  This article reviews recent literature on the welfare of poultry.

The Welfare of Pigs: Review of Recent Literature

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Animal welfare issues pertaining to pig farming are diverse, and scientific efforts to address these issues have resulted in a plethora of new literature. This review consolidates and summarizes this literature in an effort to provide a better understanding of pig welfare. Considerable attention has been given to housing design, husbandry and transportation of pigs.

The Welfare of Horses: Review of Recent Literature

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Horses serve a number of functions throughout different parts of the world. They are the work animals in a number of third world countries, food livestock to specific countries, and are companion animals to many people in developed nations.  The welfare of horses has been an issue in North America since 1641, when the Massachusetts Bay Colony included horses in legislation prohibiting cruelty to animals (Stuff, 1996).  This article reviews literature on various
Horse related welfare articles. 

The Welfare of Cattle: Review of Recent Literature

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The cattle industry in Canada comprises three main enterprises: dairy, veal and beef production.  This literature review touches base on topics such as Transport, Slaughter, Lameness, Painful Procedures, Reproductive Technology, Bovine and Somatotropin (BST).