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Industry Partners
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:
Sow Management and Housing What Does the Industry Think?
Posted in: Prairie Swine Centre by admin on January 1, 2007 | No Comments
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.
An Overview of the Animal Care Assessment Program
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The treatment and care of animals is important, as is outlined in the 1984 Code of Practice for the Care and Handling of Farm Animals: Pigs. These codes provide information about recommended practices to produces and interested parties. There is now a program in development that looks at promoting sound animal care practices on Canadian hog farms, providing a mechanism to demonstrate that the practices are being followed, and building confidence throughout the supply chain and consumers. This program is called the ACA. This program will be delivered through the CQA agency in each province. This program will efficiently be implemented in the near future.
Relationship between growth and non-nutritive massage in suckling pigs
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Nursing in piglets relies on a particularly complex communication system, due in part to piglets being a precocial and a polytocous species lacking a milk cistern, such that milk is available at all teats simultaneously only for very short periods of time throughout the day. After lactation is established during the first couple of days, nursing becomes synchronous and cyclical, with all piglets suckling simultaneously every 30–70 min, over 20 times a day (Fraser, 1980; Lewis and Hurnik, 1985). These regular nursing bouts include five discrete phases that are observable in both domestic (Fraser, 1980) and wild breeds (Horrell, 1997). The first three phases involve the communication and coordination between the sow and her litter to ensure piglets arrive at and stimulate the udder to induce milk ejection (Algers, 1993; Bazer et al., 2001). Once the sow and piglets are synchronized and the udder has received adequate stimulation, the fourth phase, milk ejection, occurs (Fraser, 1980). The fifth and final phase of piglet nursing involves massage after milk is ejected. This period involves both massage and slow sucking (Fraser, 1980) and is very variable in length, depending on whether the sow or piglets terminate the nursing bout (Jensen et al., 1998) and on the age of the piglets (Horrell, 1997). The final massage is generally longer in duration than the massage prior to milk ejection (Algers and Jensen, 1985) and involves the expenditure of substantial amounts of energy (Klaver et al., 1981) that would seem to be counterproductive for animals trying to survive and grow. The objective of this experiment was to determine if there is a relationship between non-nutritive massage and growth in the young pig over the course of lactation. The suckling behaviour of 195 piglets from 20 litters was observed during at least three nursing bouts on each of three separate days. Piglets were weighed at birth and at 15 days post-partum, and 15-day growth rates were calculated. There was a significant difference between and within litters in suckling behaviour performed after milk ejection. Growth rates were negatively correlated with suckling during the final massage for individual piglets (r = -0.26; P < 0.003) and entire litters (r = -0.79; P < 0.001). Slower growing piglets also performed more suckling behaviour between nursing bouts r = -0.23; P < 0.05) and during incomplete nursing bouts (r = -0.30; P < 0.01) Piglets that performed the final massage consistently grew slower than those not involved with this costly behaviour. This data supports the hypothesis that massage after milk ejection is representative of piglets’ nutritional need. However, it appears that a lengthy massage does not result in an overall net return on piglet growth rate.
Vaccination of Sows and Gilts against PCV2 Diseases: Field Experiences in Europe
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Porcine circovirus type 2 (PCV2) has been associated with a number of disease syndromes in pigs, including post-weaning multisystemic wasting syndrome (PMWS), proliferating and necrotizing pneumonia, porcine respiratory disease complex (PRDC), abortion and reproductive problems (Allan & Ellis, 2000). Porcine dermatitis and nephropathy syndrome (PDNS) and a new ear necrosis syndrome have also been associated with PCV2 but today, there is not definitive evidence that PCV2 is the major cause of these syndromes. Since the end of 2004, CIRCOVAC® (Merial), a PCV2 vaccine dedicated to sows and gilts to control PCVD in the whole herd, has been used in several parts of the world. The goal of this paper is to review the large-scale studies of PCV2 vaccination in Europe. PMWS/PCVD are still major causes of impaired economic performance in all parts of the world. Vaccination of the sows with CIRCOVAC® has now extensively, and in various geographic areas, been shown to prevent PMWS mortality and to decrease total mortality in piglets as well as to improve growth and performance of the piglets. The vaccinated herds previously suffering from PCVD were able to recover and to return to a “close-to-normal” performance (even sometimes better than before the PCVD outbreak), due to an almost total reduction of the increase in mortality above the basic non- PCV2-related mortality. In addition, the recent studies presented here confirm the largely reported beneficial effects of CIRCOVAC® in the field on reproduction as well as on the very early period of the piglet’s life. The data regarding reproduction are in contradiction with other recently presented observations in the United States, using the PigCHAMP system (Nerem, 2007), that did not show PCV2 vaccination in 18,000 sows to improve reproduction results, although the tool used is quite similar to the GTE data analysis system. This may have several explanations including a different health status of the herds/sows, a difference in the time frame of the study or a difference in the vaccine used. Vaccination of the sows and gilts with CIRCOVAC® induced major improvements in reproduction parameters, in the piglet performance during the suckling phase as well as impressive improvements in pig heath status and growth for their life span.
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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Vaccine Research at VIDO
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Vaccines traditionally consist of either attenuated (weakened) live, or inactivated (killed) pathogens. In general, live vaccines are more effective as they tend to stimulate stronger immune responses, similar to natural infection. However, live vaccines have the risk of potentially causing disease, especially in animals that are compromised by stress or other diseases. Killed vaccines are very safe but often induce weaker immune responses and require the addition of vaccine adjuvants. Live vectored vaccines or DNA vaccines are recently-developed vaccine technologies that are very safe and capable of inducing immune responses that are similar to natural infection. However, neither DNA vaccines nor vectored vaccines are licensed for pigs in Canada, though promising experimental vaccines are already in the final stages of development. At the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization (VIDO), several projects are aimed at developing novel and more effective vaccines for pigs. Infectious diseases remain the major cause of morbidity and mortality in swine production. Recent outbreaks of porcine circovirus (PCV), porcine reproductive respiratory syncytial virus (PRRSV) or swine influenza virus (SIV) have demonstrated that infectious diseases can have devastating effects on Canada’s swine industry. Vaccination represents a very cost-effective strategy to reduce animal suffering, improve the economics of livestock production, and reduce the spread of many infectious diseases from animals to humans. The importance of modern vaccine research is highlighted by the need for better food safety and the threat of importing devastating diseases such as foot-and-mouth disease or hog cholera.
A Trucker’s Experience – What Works
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The hog industry has been evolving and changing through the years and Steve’s Livestock is a company that is part of this progressive industry. Steve’s Livestock realized that there was a heightened awareness in biosecurity and the humane handling of livestock has resulted in changes among feed manufacturing, genetics, transportation and all businesses related to hog production. This paper highlights some experiences with the transportation of livestock, underscoring the commitment of Steve’s Livestock to provide a safe and humane transportation in a biosecure environment to help facilitate the highest profitability for their customers. This paper presents some of the areas where the company has experienced success through innovative ideas presented and established in the industry over the last 20 years in business. Positive innovative solutions must be present to ensure that all groups including consumers, hog producers, processing plants, as well as animal rights activists, understand that humane animal handling is a priority and a reality within the hog industry. Part of making things work, includes finding positive solutions to the variety of challenges that the industry faces. The BSE outbreak is one challenge that has caused questions to arise on where animals in the food chain were born, raised and slaughtered in the event of a disease outbreak. Steve’s Livestock has been proactive in introducing new protocols to increase high health washes and reduce the risk of disease transfer. The director of quality control constantly reviews and upgrades protocols to meet and exceed the needs of customers and the livestock industry as a whole. Protocols have been implemented where employees must adhere to strict procedures, including: washing and disinfecting of wash suits, boots, mats, storage boxes, boots and animal handling tools. Wash bay employees’ clothing is kept separated and all staff must adhere to the biosecurity standards posted. The trailer washing inspection process has been standardized and includes a checklist that must be completed by the shift supervisor. Failed inspections result in the trailer being washed a second time and re-inspected. All wash bay employees go through orientation, which includes the wash bay training video outlining the biosecurity procedures that must be followed. Each employee is responsible for a specific task to confirm quality washing is completed and staff is accountable for any breaches in biosecurity. All employees for both the wash bay, as well as drivers, cannot reside on a hog farm. All new drivers go through a 3-day orientation program, which includes extensive training on biosecurity measures that are required, as well as, the procedures to follow all necessary protocols. Emphasis is given to educating the drivers on the logic behind biosecurity to enable each individual to understand how far reaching repercussions of a simple mistake or misinterpretation can be. Steve’s Transport also has a full time driver trainer on staff to assist driver services in determining if a driver possesses the necessary qualities and skills required to haul the different classes of livestock. Humane handling of livestock has been a part of Steve’s Livestock mission statement since its inception. All drivers are trained in proper animal handling as outlined in the TQA ™ handbook describing the hog’s natural urge to escape and tendency to follow each other. The flight zone and point of balance is explained in detail to equip the driver to be able to calmly and successfully load the animals with minimal stress. Training is given to explain that aggressive handling is dangerous and how loading and unloading alone can cause excessive stress for the animals. Truckers are well informed on the correlation between all aspects of the food chain and their role in ensuring a superior product for the consumer and profitability for the producer. In the future, the hog industry will continue to face challenges, including, the rising costs associated with fuel and feed along with the implementation of Country of Origin Labeling.