Impact of nutrition on nitrogen, phosphorus, Cu and Zn in pig manure, and on emissions of ammonia and odours

Posted in: Environment by admin on January 1, 2007 | No Comments

Dissolved Organic Carbon in Runoff and Tile-Drain Water under Corn and Forage Fertilized with Hog Manure

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This study compared the effects of mineral fertilizer (MF) and liquid hog manure (LHM) applications on the concentration and molecular size of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) released in runoff and tile-drain water under corn (Zea mays L.) and forage cropping systems. It was concluded that incorporation
of corn residues and LHM increased the concentration of
DOC and the relative size of the molecules in surface runoff water,
whereas DOC in tile-drain water was mostly influenced by the cropping
system with relatively more DOC and larger molecules under
forage than corn.

Flaxseed Meal in Swine Rations: Growth Performance and Carcass Fatty Acid Profile

Posted in: Prairie Swine Centre by admin on | No Comments

Flaxseed meal is a by-product of the flaxseed crushing industry. There has been a growing interest in the use of flaxseed and its related products such as FSM within the swine industry. Flaxseed is the richest plant-based source of ALA, which has been implicated in having many potential health benefits. The primary goal for use of flaxseed and its by-products within the animal industry is to create a product enriched with omega-3 fatty acids. This experiment used a total of 200 pigs from 32kg initial weight through to market (115kg). Pigs were randomly assigned to one of four dietary treatments containing 0, 5, 10 or 15% FSM included at the expense of barley and soybean meal. It was concluded that the inclusion of up to 15% flaxseed meal (FSM) in the diets of growing and finishing pigs did not have any detrimental effects on overall growth performance, feed intake or feed conversion. Pigs fed diets containing FSM had increased levels of the omega-3 fatty acid á-linolenic acid (ALA) in both their backfat and loins. This may provide producers with an opportunity to sell their pork to specialized markets, and possibly attract a premium price for their product.

Sow Management and Housing What Does the Industry Think?

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Maintaining research facilities that have the capability to meet industry needs is at the core of Prairie Swine Centre’s mandate to serve the industry with near-market research information. A significant effort by Saskatchewan Agriculture and Food to replace the ageing 1980 barns was developed with the Federal government and the result is a shared federal/provincial grant for the renovation of the gestation, breeding and farrowing facilities. The current facility will be challenged to meet the current standards of animal care expected of a research farm and the construction of the new barn will actually reduce the operating costs of the farm through improvements in energy efficiency. Labour is also reduced because all animals will be within the same building instead of being spread over 4 separate buildings and they will be automatically fed instead of hand fed. Sow management is an area of immediate concern to all pork producers who are considering what if any changes they will make to their operations in light of the announcements regarding group-housed gestating sows. In general, the industry is well aware of changes in attitude taking place within the public, the media and special interest groups regarding animal welfare in the barn. There is concern that in fact the housing and management options proposed to replace gestation stalls provide questionable welfare improvements for the animals and at the same time are considered ‘animal friendly’ by people outside the industry because the housing systems allow animals to live in groups. To address these and other research needs the new barn is being designed to accommodate studying the effect of key components of sow management, particularly those that have to do with gestation sow management and housing such as space allowance, group size and feeding. Each of these will be critical factors in developing any renovation that pork producers may wish to pursue in developing a system that ensures low cost productivity as well as embracing a group housing component.

Chemometric utilities to achieve robustness in liquid NIRS calibrations: Application to pig fat analysis

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Porcine isosporosis: Infection dynamics, pathophysiology and immunology of experimental infections

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Isospora suis, an intestinal protozoan parasite of swine, is the causative agent of neonatal coccidiosis, a disease with high morbidity in affected pig-breeding units and consequently of high economic importance. Infection leads to damage of the mucosal surface in the jejunum and ileum and to non-haemorrhagic diarrhoea. As a result, weight gain of piglets is reduced and secondary infections with other enteric pathogens may lead to increased mortality. Despite its economic and veterinary importance, host-parasite interactions are still poorly understood. To examine these interactions experimental infection models are established using outbred piglets infected with defined numbers of parasites on different days of life. This review discusses the life cycle of Isospora suis and the clinical and parasitological characteristics of porcine neonatal coccidiosis including pathology, and compare the different experimental infection models and the tools for studying Isospora suis in vitro. Moreover, it summarises findings about natural age resistance of pigs against infections with Isospora suis, our current knowledge about immune response to other coccidial infections, e.g. with Eimeria spp. in different hosts, and gives a short overview on peculiarities of the porcine immune system and its development in young animals which may play a role in porcine coccidiosis.

Objects as enrichment: Effects of object exposure time and delay interval on object recognition memory of the domestic pig

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An important non-spatial memory ability not well described in pigs is memory for objects. Knowledge of the robustness of object recognition memory in the pig, including when and how recognition fades, would be useful for pig producers using objects in an environmental enrichment program. While it seems clear that substrates for rooting are utilized by pigs for a greater duration and frequency than objects (Van de Weerd et al., 2006; Scott et al., 2006), and have a greater effect on welfare as indicated by decreased aggression and tail-biting (reviewed by Bracke et al., 2006), objects of all types can provoke some exploration (Van de Weerd et al., 2003). If pigs recognize a repeatedly encountered object as familiar, they would probably not interact with it as they would a novel object. Little is known, however, about how long a pig remembers objects. Therefore, it is the focus of this paper to address object recognition memory in the domestic pig. To better understand the effect of exposure time and delay intervals on pig object recognition memory, a modified spontaneous object recognition test was used to examine object recognition memory in the domestic pig. This test uses preference for a novel object over a previously encountered sample object as indicating recognition of the sample object, and no preference as indicating no recognition. We exposed 5-week-old pigs to different sample objects in their home pens for 10 min and 2 days, respectively. We tested for object recognition memory at various delay intervals after initial exposure by placing littermate pairs in a test pen for 10 min and recording snout contact with a sample object and a completely novel object. At a 1-h delay, half the pairs were tested with the 2-day sample object; the other half received the 10-min sample object. At a 3-h delay, pairs were tested with the opposite sample object. Pairs were also tested with the 2-day sample at a 5-day delay and the 10-min sample at a 6-day delay. We predicted that pigs would show a preference for the novel versus the 2-day sample object at all three delays, but would only prefer the novel object over the 10-min sample object at the 1-h and 3-h delays. Pigs did not show novelty preference in the presence of the 10-min sample object at any delay. Novelty preference in the presence of the 2-day sample object occurred at the 3-hour and 5-day delays, but not the 1-hour delay. The lack of novelty preference when pigs were tested with the 10-min sample object may have been due to failure to habituate to the sample object. Testing in a different location from the initial sample object exposure and retroactive interference from exposure to the 10-min sample object may have contributed to a temporary lack of novelty preference when pigs were tested with the 2-day sample object at the 1-h delay. The finding that pigs retained a memory for the 2-day sample object for at least 5 days suggests that restricting object exposure to less than 2 days may help to preserve the exploratory value of objects rotated among pens.

PCVAD Vaccine Results in Grower-Finisher Units: Practical Evaluation and Considerations

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A severe epizootic of Porcine Circovirus Associated Disease (PCVAD) struck swine herds in Eastern Canada towards the end of 2004. Even though many producers implemented better management practices, PCVAD continued to cause severe economic losses for swine producers. During 2006, Circovac® from Merial, Intervet PCV2 vaccine (no trade name), and Ingelvac® CircoFLEXTM from Boehringer Ingelheim became available in Canada. The first reports on the efficacy of piglet vaccines were very positive. De Grau et al. (2007) reported significant reductions in mortality in 4 independent farm trials using PCV2 Intervet vaccine. Desrosiers et al. (2007) also reported similar improvement with Ingelvac® CircoFLEXTM. In a controlled trial done in 4 finisher barns in Quebec in 2006, mortality was 2.4% in vaccinated pigs compared to 9.5% for non-vaccinated pigs. It is obvious looking at these results that piglet vaccination for PCVAD in the finisher stage significantly reduces the impact of this disease on the herd. However, in the initial stages of the outbreak, the supply of piglet PCV2 vaccines was insufficient to meet demand. As a result, many swine production systems used all of the available commercial products concurrently in order to vaccinate as many piglets as possible. Also, off-label use (e.g. half dosing or administering a single injection of vaccines labelled for use as 2 dose vaccines) became a common practice in an attempt to “stretch” vaccine stores and provide protection to the largest possible number of pigs. Field experience so far suggests that fractional (half) dosing can deliver equivalent mortality rates equivalent to full dose schemes but there may be differences in key economic drivers, such as feed conversion (F/C) and Average Daily Gain (ADG). In an attempt to further examine this question the PigCHAMP data from a 3-site production system were analyzed. Based on the data, and within this system, there appeared to be little difference in performance between full vs. ½ dose Intervet PCV2 vaccinated pigs. However, the data was collected in the field rather than under controlled conditions and represent a relatively small number of groups. Clearly what is needed to clarify this picture is information from case-control studies. Additionally, we must not forget that the majority of the vaccine results obtained so far come from herds where better than average management practices and disease control strategies were in place. Therefore, the decision to embark on the use of off label dosing must be made with due consideration for individual herd factors that may influence the results. Ideally, all farms should have an information system in place to collect objective production information that can be used to both benchmark current performance and analyze the impact of management changes (including vaccine regimens). Given the pivotal role that immune stimulation has been demonstrated to play in the expression of PCVAD (Krakowka et al., 2001), it is critical to take the degree of control of other pathogens into account when designing a PCV2 control program. In PRRSv positive groups, the half-dose regimen had the lowest mortality and FC and higher ADG, whereas in PRRSv negative groups, the full dose regimen had the lowest mortality and FC and highest ADG. Unfortunately, because the data came from uncontrolled studies gathered in the field and the sample size was limited, it’s impossible to draw any conclusions at this time but further research aimed at better defining these impacts would clearly be helpful. The complications introduced by circulating PRRS virus also serves to remind us of the importance of controlling circulating primary pathogens. The system in question is currently engaged in actively managing PRRS virus with the goal of eliminating virus circulation. In the opinion of the authors, PCV2 vaccines are the single most effective tool currently available for the control PCVAD. However, some researchers have already started to raise questions about the “immunological cross-protective capability of single-strain commercial vaccines” (Horlen et al., 2007) and to date our understanding of why PCVAD suddenly became a problem within North America is far from complete. We must not allow the effectiveness of PCV2 vaccines to substitute for good management and long term industry wide strategic planning. The next ‘new’ pig disease may be just around the corner and effective vaccines and control strategies may well be a lot further off.

The Brazilian Pig Industry – How It Will Continue To Grow And Become Even More Important In The Global Marketplace

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It is common knowledge that in the past few years Brazil has increased pig production exponentially, but in the past 12 months it has stabilized. Brazil has adopted the mindset of few producers with exceptional production and has focused on seeking production improvements and implementing them. Aggressive business, high heard health, labour availability, environmental advantages, abundant space and accessible grain have improved Brazil’s livestock industry in the world economy.

Fecal free: Biology and authority in industrialized Midwestern pork production

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