Lairage during transport of eighteen-kilogram pigs has an impact on innate immunity and commensal bacteria diversity in the intestines

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The objective of this study was to determine whether a midjourney lairage influenced swine innate immunity and intestinal microbial populations after a 16-h transport. Four replications were conducted, 1 in each of 4 seasons.
The results of this study indicate that adding a lairage to an extended transport alters immune functions, receptor, cytokine and chemokine expression, and gut microbiota compared with pigs transported for 16 hours with no break (lairage).

Walk-through weighing of pigs using machine vision and an artificial neural network

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An image-based walk-through system was developed in this study for
pig liveweight approximation without having to restrain the pig to a certain area for
stationary imaging. It was found that it easier for stockmen to obtain the liveweight of pigs using the machine vision-based weighing system.

The effect of feed restriction on belly nosing behaviour in weaned piglets

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The objective of this study was to determine the effect of feed restriction on the behaviour of newly weaned piglets. It was found that individual differences in response to feed restriction suggest that there is a causal relationship between low feed intake and belly nosing, but only in piglets with a predisposition for the behaviour.

The association between disease and profitability in individual finishing boars at a test station

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The objective of this study was to investigate the impact of disease on the Proftit margin (PM) using data from individual boars at a Danish boar test station. Treatments were used as indicators of disease in the finishing period and, records of pathological lesions were used as an indicator of disease at slaughter. The objective was studied by means of a multivariable hierarchical analysis. The explanatory variables comprised breed and weight at 4 weeks. It was found that disease had a significant negative effect on the PM in individual boars reaching a slaughter weight of at least 80 kg. Parenteral treatment was associated with a larger reduction in the PM than oral treatment. Also pathological findings at slaughter were associated with a negative effect on the PM. The effect of pathological
findings was influenced by breed. The results were shown to be robust to changes in the price of a 30 kg piglet and relatively robust in regard to the price of feed. However, price of kg carcass weight and medicine appeared to influence the analysis results.

Effect of adding Lactobacillus plantarum or a formic acid containing-product to fermented liquid feed on gastrointestinal ecology and growth performance of piglets

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The present study was carried out with the aim of
investigating whether adding a starter culture or a formic
acid containing-product to fermented liquid feed of
suboptimal microbial quality (high pH, low concentration
of lactic acid, and high number of Enterobacteriacea)
could improve the characteristics of the feed and
the gastrointestinal health and growth performance of
piglets. The results indicated that addition of a
starter culture or a formic acid containing-product to
fermented liquid feed of suboptimal microbial quality
are strategies that can improve growth performance of
piglets. However, these treatments did not result in
substantial effects on the ecology of the gastrointestinal
tract of the animals. Further studies are needed to confirm
these observations and to elucidate the mechanisms
behind the reported results.

Tools to help pork producers deal with the scourge of mycotoxins

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Researcher Art Schaafsma explains that they are developing
a set of tools which will help the industry deal with
the various mycotoxins produced by fusarium fungi. Mycotoxin problems arise if there is warm, rainy weather
just after silking. The more rain days around silking, the
greater the risk, explains Schaafsma. By the end of August,
he has a pretty good idea of where the problem areas will
be. If corn is clean then, a lot of rain in the fall is much less
likely to cause a problem to develop, he says. However, if the
fungi have started growing by August, a wet fall will make it worse “A forecast would give you a ‘heads-up’”, says Schaafsma, enabling producers to make informed decisions about which fields to keep and which fields to sell. A similar forecasting tool is already available to wheat growers, who have not raised the same resistance to its use. With corn, “it is very difficult to get support for this,” says Schaafsma. The scientist also recommends
that growers choose BT varieties because increased
insect pressure opens the grain to fungal infection.

Economic Value of Ethanol Byproducts in Swine Diets: Evaluating Profitability of Corn Fractionation Techniques

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Remote control airboat measures lagoon sludge

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Lagoon management can be greatly aided by knowing how much sludge is in a lagoon at a given time. As well, knowing the amount of build-up in a lagoon is necessary in order to monitor the effectiveness of sludge management products. But actually measuring the sludge amount can be a laborious and dangerous job. Recently, interest in the use of sonar waves for sludge measurements has increased among the scientific and business community. The University of Georgia’s Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering decided to develop an air-powered remote controlled airboat. The researchers tested its measurements for various settings of the control panel variables and validated the airboat measurements with reports by a private commercial firm using a similar, but more complicated system. The remotely controlled unmanned airboat was designed and assembled by Pat Harrel, a UGA technician. The 44 inch long and 24 inch wide airboat is equipped with a fish finder sonar unit coupled with a global positioning system (GPS) receiver. The fish finder uses a 200kHz transducer located at the bottom rear edge of the airboat. The airboat is propelled by a gasoline engine driven propeller. Three Teflon bars are installed at the bottom of the airboat to reduce friction while moving over floating debris. The remote control unit has two actuators: one controlled the direction by moving two air wings mounted behind the propeller, and the other controls engine speed. On the airboat, the sonar unit collects the data in the form of a map of the bottom of the lagoon. To record and redisplay this map, the sonar unit also stores information about the speed, position, depth to top and bottom of sludge layer, and other details in a data file. During validation analysis for the data collected by the airboat, the mapping data reported by the private firm was used as reference. The top surface of the sludge obtained from the airboat and that from the private firm are shown in Figure 1. Both surface maps for the top of the sludge looked similar except that the surface map resulting from the airboat data had more spikes on the surface. This non-smooth behavior might be due to the use of a less accurate GPS system with the airboat. The GPS system used by the private firm had accuracy within inches compared to several feet for the system used by the airboat GPS. While the airboat technology for sludge measurement is 15 to 20 times faster and 70 percent less labor consuming, further research is needed to generalize this technology.

Partial Biofiltration of Exhaust Air from a Hybrid Ventilated Deep-Pit Swine Finisher Barn

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A strategy for providing partial biofiltration of a critical minimum amount of ventilation air (CMVR) from a hybrid
ventilated swine finishing facility was developed and tested. The results indicate that a strategy of partial biofiltration can result in significant reductions in odor and ammonia emissions when applied to hybrid ventilated swine finishing barns.

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

The Environmental and Public Health Risks Associated with Arsenical Use in Animal Feeds

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In this research, we discuss the use of arsenicals in food-animal production and the evidence associating this use with increased levels of arsenic compounds in edible tissues. In addition to food consumption, the use of arsenicals in
animal feeds results in environmental pathways of exposure owing to waste-disposal practices common to intensive or industrial food-animal production. It was found that humans are exposed to arsenic via a number of environmental and dietary sources, all of which contribute to individuals’ cumulative arsenic burdens. Many of these sources, such
as naturally occurring arsenic in groundwater, are difficult or expensive to control, and as a result, challenges exist inmitigation of these exposures. Contrarily, as an intentional additive to poultry feed, the removal of arsenicals from the feed regimen is a cost-free intervention, mitigating not only exposures resulting from exposures
to waste-born arsenic, but also eliminating dietary exposures through consumption of contaminated animal products.