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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:
Finishing pigs with corn steep water can be beneficial
Posted in: Production by admin on January 1, 2007 | No Comments
Feeding phytase-treated corn steep water (CSW) to finishing pigs can be beneficial if the CSW is available at reasonable cost and you don’t feed too much, concludes a new study. However, it can result in reduced weight gain. Dr. Kees de Lange, a Professor in the Department of Animal and Poultry Science, University of Guelph, notes that liquid feeding of swine is increasing in Ontario, allowing the use of inexpensive liquid co-products from the food and bio-fuel industry, such as CSW.
“The producers have to look at the cost benefit of using CSW in their feed,” he says, cautioning that CSW is beneficial only up to 15 per cent of dry matter in liquid diets. “If you go much higher than 15 per cent, it looks like the palatability of the feed is reduced,” he says. Reduced intake naturally results in increased days to market. The study notes that high phytate and sulfur content
may contribute to reduced palatability of CSW. The CSW used in the study, produced at CASCO’s (Canada Starch Operating Company Inc.) London plant, was incubated with phytase to degrade phytate before it was delivered to the Arkell Swine Research Station at the University of Guelph. CSW, a co-product of the corn starch and syrup industry, is available to producers through feed brokers. Four experimental diets were formulated to test the use of CSW (0, 7.5, 15 and 22.5 per cent on a dry matter basis) and
were fed to finishing pigs, starting at a body weight of about 70 kilograms. There were four pens of eight pigs for each treatment, with an equal number of gilts and barrows in each pen. Body weight and per-pen feed usage was monitored weekly. When pigs reached slaughter weight, one barrow and one gilt from each pen were shipped to the meats laboratory at the University of Guelph for detailed assessment of carcass and meat quality. The remaining pigs were sent to a commercial pig processing facility for routine carcass evaluation. The study concludes that phytase may be added to
warm CSW soon after it has been separated from the starch containing fraction in the wet corn milling process. The release of phytate-bound phosphorus was nearly complete 24 hours after phytase was added, and enhances substantially the phosphorus available to pigs. A “negative effective” on growth performance observed when CSW exceeded 15 per cent was due to a slight reduction in feed intake and worsening of feed efficiency. The observed reductions did not affect meat quality except for
a reduction in drip loss from the meat, which means more profit for meat processors.
“We looked at various aspects of meat quality,” de Lange says, “and they were not influenced by the feeding of corn steep water, except for this change in drip loss.”
Rising Demand for Meat: Who Will Feed China’s Hogs?
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Manure technology for the 21st Century
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Research innovations will make it more practical and economical for Canada’s beef
industry to turn potential waste into a valuable resource.
“Sustainability” is a concept that can be hard to pin down. For Dr. Xiaomei Li, it’s all
about balance. And right now, that balance is out of whack when it comes to producing
beef and managing manure. Li is on the front line of innovations to do just that. Among several projects in recent
years, Li and colleagues developed a new phosphorous model, to assist operators in
determining manure application rates that are environmentally safe.
DOMESTIC WASTEWATER DISINFECTION USING SOLAR RADIATION FOR AGRICULTURAL REUSE
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Potential mineralization of nitrogen from organic wastes to ryegrass and wheat crops
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Phosphorus Losses through Agricultural Tile Drainage in Nova Scotia, Canada
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Monitoring of Aerial Pollutants Emitted from Swine Houses in Korea
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Determination of Ammonia Emission Factors for Swine Manure Application in Western Canada
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Ammonia loss from land-applied manure depends on weather conditions, manure characteristics, application technique and soil characteristics. Weather factors include temperature, rainfall, relative humidity and wind speed. Soil properties include moisture content, infiltration capacity, nutrient retention capacity, pH and soil chemistry. Manure characteristics affecting ammonia emissions include the ammonium concentration, pH and viscosity. The primary objective of an on-going research project at Brandon Research Centre is to develop ammonia emission factors for liquid swine manure under western Canadian conditions and practices. A secondary goal is to suggest methods (BMPs) for reducing emissions, particularly during periods when air quality is at risk. Since phosphorus accumulation in soils receiving manure is of concern due to increasing eutrification occurring in rivers and lakes, separating manures in order to improve the N:P ratio is under consideration as a method to improve phosphorus distribution. However chemicals added to enhance solids separation also alter the chemistry of manure and subsequently affect ammonia emissions from the liquids and solids after application. Accurate ammonia loss estimates from manure are needed to improve nutrient management recommendations and test the value of ammonia abatement techniques. Reliable measurements will assist in the development of emission calculation models to evaluate best cost, effective alternatives for reducing ammonia emissions. Many types of apparatuses have been developed for testing ammonia volatilization models to predict contributions to global livestock ammonia emissions. This study used wind tunnel measurements this technique has been identified as more suitable than small stationary chambers because temperature, humidity and natural airflow are more easily simulated. Wind tunnels can also be used on a small scale to compare multiple manure treatments and application techniques in a side-by-side analysis. This study concluded that under conditions of high air temperatures, a significant proportion of the ammonia nitrogen in manure could be lost from shallow banding or enhanced infiltration application techniques. Manure separation technologies that require the addition of alkaline flocculating agents could contribute to further ammonia losses by elevating the pH of both the liquid and the solid portion of the manure. The elevated pH increases nutrient loss and decreases the N:P ratio of the solid portion of the manure which may contribute to the phosphorus enrichment problem. Acidifying the liquids after solid-liquid separation should keep more of the ammonia in solution.