Livestock industry tackles new era in animal welfare

Posted in: Welfare by admin on January 1, 2008 | No Comments

New trends, the latest research and leading strategies on farm animal welfare. All were featured at the 2008 Livestock Care Conference in Red Deer, Alberta. The annual conference, featuring international heavyweights in the field, is hosted by Alberta Farm Animal Care (AFAC), a partnership of Alberta’s major livestock groups with a mandate to promote responsible, humane animal care within the livestock industry. A list is provided regarding the feature articles presented at the conference.

A regional evaluation of injections of high levels of vitamin A on reproductive performance of sows

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A regional study involving 443 litters
from 182 sows was conducted at 5 cooperating experiment
stations to determine the effects of an i.m. injection
of vitamin A at weaning and breeding on subsequent
litter size of sows. The results of this
regional project demonstrated that injection of high
doses of vitamin A in young sows at weaning and breeding
improves the subsequent number of pigs born and
weaned per litter, indicating that vitamin A requirements
for maximal performance may vary with age.

Influence of dietary phosphorus concentration on the digestibility of phosphorus in monocalcium phosphate by growing pigs

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This study was done to determine if the dietary inclusion rate of phosphorus influences the digestibility of it. The results concluded that the digestibility and absorption of phosphorus from monocalcium
phosphate was not influenced by the dietary concentration of phosphorus.

Effects of chito-oligosaccharide supplementation on the growth performance, nutrient digestibility, intestinal morphology, and fecal shedding of Escherichia coli and Lactobacillus in weaning pigs

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50 weaning pigs were selected to investigate the effect of dietary chito-oligosaccharide (COS) supplementation on growth performance, fecal shedding of Escherichia coli and Lactobacillus, apparent digestibility and small intestinal morphology. The results indicated that dietary supplementation of COS at 100 and 200 mg/kg enhanced growth performance by increasing apparent digestibility, decreasing the incidence of diarrhea and improving small intestinal morphology.

Fasting regulates the expression of adiponectin receptors in young growing pigs

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Adiponectin is an adipocyte-derived
hormone that can improve insulin sensitivity. Its functions
in regulating glucose utilization and fatty acid
metabolism in mammals are mediated by 2 subtypes
of adiponectin receptors (AdipoR1 and AdipoR2). This
study was conducted to determine the effect of fasting
on the expression of adiponectin and its receptors.
The expression of adiponectin was not affected in s.c.
adipose tissue, but adiponectin expression increased in
visceral adipose tissue after fasting. In contrast, expression
of both AdipoR mRNA was increased in the liver
and s.c. adipose tissue of 24-h-fasted pigs compared
with fed pigs, but the mRNA in muscle and visceral
adipose tissue was not affected by fasting. A third putative
adiponectin receptor, T-cadherin, was cloned and
the mRNA expression was determined. T-Cadherin has
been recognized to act as a vascular adiponectin receptor
in vascular endothelial and smooth muscle cells. Our
data showed that the expression of T-cadherin was decreased
in the muscle of fasted pigs, suggesting that the
expression of T-cadherin can be regulated by feeding
status. In summary, in young pigs, adiponectin mRNA
was up-regulated by fasting in visceral, but not s.c.,
adipose tissue, whereas AdipoR1 and AdipoR2 mRNA
were increased in s.c., but not visceral, adipose tissue.
The adiponectin receptor, T-cadherin, was expressed in
s.c. and visceral adipose tissue and in muscle, but only
muscle mRNA expression was decreased by fasting.

InraPorc: A model and decision support tool for the nutrition of sows

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The process of reproduction, from conception to weaning, can be considered as directed to buffer the developing progeny from nutritional distress (Oldham, 1991) and involves both homeostatic and homeorhetic controls of nutrient partitioning (Bauman and Currie, 1980). Reproductive problems, which may result in the reduction of sows productivity or early culling, are often related to extreme variations in body reserves (Dourmad et al., 1994), although body reserves should be considered more as an indicator of the risk for rather than as the real cause of problems. During pregnancy, sufficient body reserves must be built to compensate for the eventual nutritional deficit that may occur in the following lactation. However, these reserves should not be excessive in order to avoid the occurrence of farrowing problems that are typical for fat sows, or to impair feed intake after farrowing. During lactation, it is recommended to adapt nutritional supplies to requirements in order to maximise milk production and piglet’s growth, and minimize reproductive problems of sows after weaning. Consequently, nutritional supplies to sows must be adapted to maintain body reserves in optimal condition all along their productive life and optimise their reproductive performance. On farm, this requires a precise adjustment of the feeding level and the feed composition according to the performance of sows but also to housing conditions, which may affect nutrient utilisation and voluntary feed intake. Experimental results obtained during the last 20 years on energy and amino acid utilization by the pregnant or lactating sow allow improvements in the determination of nutritional requirements according to a target performance (factorial approach), and to predict the response of the animal to nutrient supplies (modelling). Compared to growing pigs, only a few models have been published for sows (Williams et al., 1985; Dourmad, 1987; Pomar et al., 1991; Pettigrew et al., 1992; NRC, 1998), and most of these were research models. In this project, we have integrated the available information on nutrient utilisation by sows to build a decision support tool allowing a global approach to understanding sow nutrition and the associated performance. This decision support tool includes a simulation model that represents on a daily basis (dynamic) the utilisation of key nutrient pools (mechanistic) for a given sow (deterministic). The end-users of these decision support tools are mainly nutritionists involved in pig production and teachers and students in animal nutrition. The aim of the present paper is to describe the basis and the main principles of this tool, which is also available for download at http://www.rennes.inra.fr/inraporc/(INRA, 2006). The sow is represented as different compartments that change over the reproductive cycle. Nutrient flows considered are those of energy and digestible amino acids. Nutrients are used with the highest priority for maintenance and uterine growth or milk production. Subsequently, deposition and/or mobilization of body proteins and lipids are determined and used for estimating the changes in body weight and backfat thickness of the sow. A decision support tool was built from the set of equations given, with additional modules to describe animal’s characteristics and adjust some model parameters to account for variations in genotypes and performance. This tool can be used to determine energy and amino acids requirements of sows according to production objectives, or to predict body composition changes according to a given feeding strategy.

Frequency of the HAL-1843 mutation of the ryanodine receptor gene in dead and nonambulatory-noninjured pigs on arrival at the packing plant

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Four Midwestern packing plants (designated as plants A, B, C, and D) were visited on 53 occasions, and tissue samples were collected postmortem from a total of 2,019 pigs to determine the frequency of the HAL-1843 mutation of the ryanodine receptor gene in dead (DOA), nonambulatory-noninjured (NANI), and normal animals. The mutation was present in all 3 classes of pig. There was a greater frequency of carriers in DOA animals than in the normal or NANI pigs. The 55 pigs that had at least 1 copy of the mutation came from 53 farms; therefore, the mutation was relatively widespread, being present in approximately 11% of the farms sampled. Therefore the data shows that the HAL-1843 mutation is still present in US commercial pig populations, it is low in frequency and therefore not a major cause of transport losses.

Optimized management of genetic variability in selected pig populations

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The results of this research showed the potential value of completing each periodical
calculation of estimated breeding value by optimizations considering genetic variability and
of releasing corresponding information to breeders, in order to enhance
maintenance of genetic variability.

Survey on Salmonella prevalence in slaughter pigs from Saskatchewan

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Organic acids in diets for entire male pigs: Effect on skatole level, microbiota in digesta, and growth performance

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Supplementing diets with formic acid, benzoic acid,
sorbic acid, or normal coated or inulin coated butyric
acid did not affect skatole or indole levels or organic
acid levels in colon of entire male pigs. Formic acid or
benzoic acid supplemented diets resulted in lower
plasma skatole levels than the control or the sorbic
acid supplemented diets. Adding formic acid, benzoic
acid, sorbic acid to diets for entire male pigs reduced
microbial population in the gastro-intestinal tract, but
this did not coincide with changes in skatole production
in the hind-gut.