The Impact of Prod Use on the Incidence of Highly Stressed Pigs

Posted in: Prairie Swine Centre by admin on January 1, 2006 | No Comments

Summary

We subjected pigs to three different handling treatments as we moved them through a 300 m handling course. Despite traveling the same distance as the other pigs, pigs moved at a moderate pace with only a board, quiet voice and gentle slaps, were essentially unstressed by the procedure. Pigs handled aggressively, at a fast pace, with shouting and slapping, but without use of electric prods had a higher incidence of stress, but none showed extremes that might lead to animal losses. Use of the electric prod resulted in a large proportion of the pigs showing both behavioural and physiological signs of stress, with some being extreme to the point of stumbling and falling. We should minimize the use of the electric prod by changing our handling techniques and/or modifying our loadout facilities.

Introduction

The shipping of finishing pigs is a stressful time for the animals, and each year several thousand pigs die or are euthanized in Canada during this process. Although the percentage of animals that are lost is quite low, at less than half of a percent, these animals represent a considerable financial loss to the industry and are a major welfare concern. Although many factors such as temperature and genotype likely contribute to these losses, the data strongly suggest that poor handling is a major cause. We were involved in a study to develop an experimental protocol to study stress induced losses of finishing pigs. The protocol has since been used to study the physiological responses of pigs to handling. As part of our study we examined the role of prod use during handling on the incidence of highly-stressed pigs.

Experimental Procedures

Our study included 192 near market weight animals. These animals were taken from their finishing pen, in groups of six, and herded through a handling course. The course was approximately 300 m in length, and involved numerous turns, reversals, and partially obstructed alleys. It took approximately 10 minutes to herd the animals through the course. We imposed three handling treatments on the animals. The Gentle treatment involved herding the animals with a herding board, voice and occasional slapping, at a comfortable walking pace. No electric prod was used in the Gentle treatment. We also used an Aggressive treatment that herded pigs at a fast walk, used a louder voice and involved slapping and/or use of the electric prod. Within each group of six pigs in the Aggressive treatment we identified two animals that were not to be prodded. They were encouraged to move only with slapping by the hand and pushing. The remaining four pigs were prodded frequently.

We attempted to identify signs of stress in the animals before they reached the extreme of falling down. These signs included laboured breathing, blotchy skin, stumbling and a strained squeal. If a pig evidenced two or more of these signs it was left behind the remainder of the group and termed a highly stressed animal. Approximately 4% of the animals stumbled and fell during handling and were euthanized if they did not show immediate signs of recovery. Although this level of loss is high compared to the industry average, some commercial loads of pigs will reach similar levels. Numerous physiological measures were taken before and after the handling procedure.

Results and Discussion

Within the Gentle handling treatment only 1 of 48 pigs was considered to be highly stressed by the procedure (Table 1). The Aggressive treatment, including the use of the prod resulted in over 40% of the animals being highly stressed, including all of the pigs which actually went down and had to be euthanized. When the pigs were moved aggressively, but without the use of the electric prod, the proportion of highly stressed pigs was intermediate to the other treatments. The Gentle treatment pigs moved the same distance as the Aggressively handled animals, so the stress was not due to the exercise per se, but rather to the handling methods. The Aggressive treatment components of more rapid movement, additional shouting and slapping did increase the level of stress, but did not put the lives of the pigs in danger. Only when we used the electric prods did we see an extreme stress response in the animals. Prod use in the study would be higher than typical when loading pigs, but under commercial conditions it would be possible for individual pigs that were confused or overly hesitant to be prodded as frequently as our experimental pigs were. These are the pigs that would be susceptible to extreme stress.

The physiological measures indicated that highly stressed pigs had higher temperatures, lower blood pH, and higher blood ammonia levels than did the pigs with no overt signs of stress. Among Aggressively handled pigs, those that received the electric prod showed extremes in these measures. It is also noteworthy that although blood lactate was similar in those showing low and high levels of stress, it was considerably higher in prodded animals than in non-prodded.

Implications

Clearly we should be minimizing the use of the electric prod when handling animals. Before prodding a pig while it is being loaded the handler should consider if another means of encouraging movement could be effective, even if it took slightly longer. If one pig is repeatedly being difficult to move it should be left behind and perhaps herded separately rather than prodding it again. If a producer finds that they must use the electric prod frequently during the loadout process, they should consider changes to their loadout design and/or general handling techniques.

Acknowledgements

Program funding is provided by Sask Pork, Alberta Pork, Manitoba Pork and the Saskatchewan Agricultural Development Fund. Project funds were provided by Elanco Animal Health.

‘Clearly, we should be minimizing the use of the electric prod when handling animals.’

Estimating the Market Demand for Value-Added Beef: Testing for BSE Announcement Effects Using a Nested PIGLOG Model Approach

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To analyze the market demand for fresh retail meats in the grocery store distribution channel, we build upon a well-developed microeconomic model of consumer choice that incorporates the role information plays in individual decision-making (Swartz and Strand; Smith, van Ravenswaay and Thompson; Brown and Schrader; Wessells, Miller and Brooks; Piggott; Piggott and Marsh; Kalaitzandonakes, Marks and Vickner; Marks, Kalaitzandonakes and Vickner). Mathios (2000) in particular investigated the impact of labels on a processed food market using a random utility model. Teisl, Bockstael and Levy (2001) used the Foster and Just (1989) framework in conjunction with an Almost Ideal Demand System (Deaton and Muelbauer) to investigate the impact of labeling in a small sample of stores in New England. Both the Mathios and Teisl et al. studies were limited in terms of data quality; lack of a representative sample and low frequency time series diminished their findings.

Les effets de la ractopamine chez les porcs en finition – Performance et composition de la carcasse

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La ractopamine à 5 ppm/kg de moulée a amélioré la croissance et l’efficacité alimentaire de 13% quand elle a été donnée aux porcs durant une moyenne de 26 à 27 jours. La ractopamine a diminué le gras dorsal et a augmenté l’épaisseur des longes. Les pertes en transport étaient plus élevées chez le groupe qui a reçu le supplément de ractopamine. Introduction – Le Paylean est un additif alimentaire qui a été récemment certifié au Canada. L’ingrédient actif du Paylean est la ractopamine, un agoniste beta-adrénergétique qui stimule la croissance des muscles et prévient la croissance des lipides. Ce produit a déjà été certifié dans plusieurs pays du monde, et son usage est répandu dans l’industrie porcine de ces pays pour augmenter les profits de la production de porcs. À cause des différences dans la mise en marché et les systèmes de classement entre ces pays et le Canada, il était nécessaire d’évaluer ce produit dans les conditions locales. L’objectif général de cette étude était d’évaluer l’efficacité du Paylean, nourri pour livrer 5ppm de ractopamine, sur la performance, les caractéristiques de la carcasse, la qualité de la carcasse et les facteurs économiques de la production porcine chez les porcs en finition. Méthodologie – L’étude a été élaborée de façon à ce que le poids moyen du début de l’essai soit de 87 kg. Cela a été établi pour procurer une moyenne de 28 jours de traitement au Paylean avant l’abattage. À la porcherie du Prairie Swine Centre à Elstow, tous les porcs disponibles dans deux salles (1 salle débutait chaque semaine) ont été placés de façon aléatoire par sexe à l’un des huit enclos. Seuls les porcs avec des problèmes de santé évidents ont été exclus de cette étude pour que la variation observée soit typique d’une régie normale. À la fin de l’essai, tous les porcs restants ont été pesés et ainsi que la moulée restante dans les trémis. Tout porc qui n’avait pas atteint le poids de vente minimum à la fin de l’essai a été envoyé à l’abattoir et l’information de carcasse pour ceux-ci a été fournie par l’abattoir. Le nombre de porcs « légers » ou « déclassés » a été noté par sexe et par traitement. Tous les animaux ont reçu une ration comparable à celle d’une femelle normale en finition. L’étude a consisté en deux traitements : contrôle ou 0,25% de Paylean®, équivalent à 5ppm de ractopamine (RAC). À part d’une augmentation de 1,00% de la lysine totale et le 5ppm de ractopamine, les porcs nourris avec le Paylean ont reçu une ration formulée en suivant les mêmes spécifications que celle des porcs du groupe contrôle. Résultats et Discussion – Un total de 271 castrats et de 259 femelles ont commencé l’étude (Tableau 1). Durant celle-ci, 5 porcs ont dû être retirés des essais, tous pour des raisons qui n’avaient rien à voir avec l’étude elle-même. Trois femelles du groupe RAC sont mortes durant le transport vers l’abattoir, et deux castrats du groupe RAC ont été condamnés à l’abattoir. Pour la taille de cette étude, il est difficile de conclure si ces morts peuvent être attribuées au traitement ou à d’autres facteurs aléatoires. Cependant, d’autres études suggèrent que les porcs traités avec la RAC pourraient être plus susceptibles au stress durant le transport. Le gain de poids moyen quotidien était plus élevé de 13% chez les porcs traités à la RAC, relativement à ceux qui ont reçu la ration contrôle (P < 0,001); les femelles et castrats ont montré des résultats similaires. Il n’y a pas eu d’effet du traitement sur la prise alimentaire, résultant ainsi à une conversion alimentaire supérieure de 13% chez les porcs traités à la RAC (P < 0,001). Comme ils ont eu une croissance plus efficace, les porcs au ration de RAC ont consommé environ 11,5 kg de moulée de moins que les porcs au ration contrôle pour atteindre le poids d’abattage. Cette étude a donc confirmé que, même à 5ppm, la RAC a des effets positifs sur le taux de croissance chez les castrats et femelles. Les porcs nourris avec la RAC ont en essai pendant une durée de 26,5 jours en moyenne, et de 30,1 jours pour les porcs avec la ration contrôle (Tableau 1), donc le nombre de porcs légers a été réduit pour le groupe de RAC. Tableau 3 montre la performance hebdomadaire des porcs, durant le traitement, classé par la semaine où le porc a été mis au marché. Il est possible de voir que, durant la première semaine de l’étude, les porcs du groupe RAC ont performé de façon supérieure comparativement aux porcs au ration contrôle, excepté pour les porcs qui ont été envoyés à l’abattage durant la 5e semaine. Cependant ces porcs à croissance plus lente semblent avoir bénéficié de la RAC durant la 2e semaine de l’essai. La réponse au Rac, pour les porcs envoyés durant les 5e et 6e semaines de l’essai, avait diminué. Comme il est démontré dans Figure 1, à cause de la croissance plus rapide des porcs en ration RAC durant les premières semaines de l’étude, plus de porcs en ration contrôle que de porcs en ration RAC ont été envoyés à l’abattoir durant les deux dernières semaines. Cette diminution de la réponse à la RAC avec une exposition plus prolongée au produit est bien documentée. Les porcs qui ont grandi le plus vite (> 1,3 kg/J) ont démontré une augmentation de 13% et les porcs qui ont grandi le plus lentement (< 1,3 kg/J) ont eu une amélioration de 7% de leur taux de croissance durant les deux premières semaines de l’étude. La croissance accélérée des porcs du groupe RAC a réduit le nombre de porcs légers de 7,5% à 0,8%, une découverte qui mérite mention à cause des pénalités sévères associées à la mise en marché de porcs légers. Le tableau 4 montre les effets du RAC sur les carcasses. Le rendement des carcasses n’a pas été affecté par le traitement (P > 0,20). La RAC a réduit l’épaisseur du gras dorsal de 1 mm en moyenne (P < 0,02); cependant, cette diminution était de 1,8 mm chez les castrats et de seulement 0,3 mm chez les femelles (traitement par sexe, P = 0,06). L’épaisseur des longes a augmenté de 2,5 mm, le rendement en muscle s’est amélioré (P < 0,001) et l’index de carcasse avait tendance à s’améliorer chez les porcs traités à la RAC (P = 0,06). Ces résultats sont en accord avec le mode d’action du RAC. CONCLUSION - L’ajout de RAC dans la ration à 5 ppm donne un taux de croissance plus élevé, un rendement en muscle plus élevé et un cycle d’élevage plus rapide. Cette réponse au RAC diminue si les porcs en reçoivent pour plus de 28 jours. REMERCIEMENTS - Subventions stratégiques de Sask Pork, Alberta Pork, Manitoba Pork Council et Saskatchewan Agriculture and Food Development Fund. Nous tenons à remercier Elanco Animal Health pour leur subvention spécifique à cette étude.

Common Feed and Water Mistakes in Nurseries and Finishers

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Out-of-feed is a common error. Human error occurs such as that of failing to monitor bin levels and/or placing feed orders too late. An example of a preventative measure includes adding a second bulk bin and keeping one or the other full at all times. Feed bridging is a second error, where feed plugs up and flow is halted. Anti-bridging devices available on the market can prevent this. Equipment malfunction is a third error. The consequences to out-of-feed include behavioral fluctuations, gastric ulcers (if off feed for 24 hours — plus the breakdown of body stores begins), hemorrhagic bowel syndrome, tail biting, and poorer carcass composition. Dr. Brumm performed an experiment in which he determined that weekly out-of-feed events reduced daily feed intake overall by 0.195 lb/day, but had no effect on feed conversion. Pigs fed coarse diets eat more feed for the final 56-day period compared to pigs fed medium ground diets, but have poorer feed conversion.

Water is a component that is frequently mismanaged among producers. Factors such as pen size and stocking density should be taken into account when planning number of drinkers, number of drinking spaces, drinker type, and delivery rate of drinkers. Water consumption appears to go in seasonal patterns. For example, in the summer, pigs’ water consumption peaks earlier in the day, with a decline beginning midday. Water recording devices can be used to monitor water wastage. Water-to-feed ratios decrease as pigs grow. At the start of their life they require about a 3.35:1 ratio and this declines to about 2.25:1 (with gate-mounted nipple drinkers). Although the volume of manure is less when water wastage is minimized, the amount of total nutrients does not vary. A flow rate of 1000 ml/min appears to be accurate for grower-finisher pigs, and 2 drinkers are recommended for every 15 to 20 grower-finisher pigs.

Porcine Eperythrozoonosis in China

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Effect of temporary straw bedding on pigs’ behaviour, performance, cortisol and meat quality

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The enrichment of pigs’ pens with straw has been a well-studied topic during the last decades and its effects on several aspects regarding pig welfare, physiology, and performance have been reported. Fraser et al. (1991) mentioned the positive influence of straw due to its use as a recreational and nutritional substrate and as thermal bedding. Pigs of enriched environments are more active and show increased exploratory and decreased manipulative behaviour (Arey and Franklin, 1995; De Jong et al., 1998; Beattie et al., 2000). These pigs are less aggressive in their home pens (Beattie et al., 2000) and in a confrontation test with unfamiliar pigs (O’Connell and Beattie, 1999) than pigs from barren environments. Also, more physiological stress before slaughter may lead to excessive glycogenolysis in the muscles, resulting in a higher lactate production and a more rapid pH decline (Lambooij et al., 2004). Therefore, a better meat quality for enriched pigs may be expected, which was demonstrated in studies of Beattie et al. (2000), Klont et al. (2001), and Lambooij et al. (2004). Other authors, in contrast, reported no influences of environmental enrichment on meat quality (Geverink et al., 1999; Day et al., 2002). Providing pigs with straw bedding throughout the entire growth phase can be quite costly and labour demanding, so providing straw during the finishing phase can be a good alternative to improve a pig’s coping capacity for transport and its meat quality. Additionally, straw provision might positively influence consumer perception. The aim of this experiment was to study and compare the effects of temporary straw bedding for various periods before slaughter (6, 4, and 2 weeks) and no straw provision on pigs’ growth performance, behaviour, cortisol concentration, intermediary metabolism, and meat quality. This experiment was replicated six times but in two replicates T6wk could not be included. A total of 220 pigs were involved, of which 132 served as focal animals for behavioural observations. The meat quality of 110 of these pigs was measured and 48 pigs were also sampled for salivary cortisol. The pigs of T6wk and T4wk had a higher average daily weight gain after 2 weeks of straw bedding, whereas no differences in feed intake or feed conversion were observed over the whole test period, nor effects on carcass weight or back fat thickness. The weekly observation of the focal animals during 5 min showed that straw provision decreased pen manipulation (P = 0.001) and pen mate manipulation (P = 0.0001). The time pigs spent on postures and specific behaviours like eating, biting and fighting was not different between treatments. Saliva samples, taken every 2 weeks, revealed no cortisol concentration differences between the treatments. No differences in plasma cortisol, glucose, lactate, or NEFA concentrations were found at slaughter. The concentration of creatine kinase tended to be lower in pigs of T6wk compared to pigs of T0wk (P = 0.07). No treatment effects on skin lesions of the front, middle, and hind regions were observed in the slaughter line. Finally, meat quality measurements in the longissimus dorsi muscle revealed no differences in pH 45 min post-mortem or in pH, electrical conductivity, colour, and water-holding capacity 24 h post-mortem. It is concluded that straw redirects the pigs’ behaviour from pen manipulation and pen mate manipulation to straw manipulation after straw provision, but that there are no or only minor differences in carcass quality, cortisol concentrations, intermediary metabolites, and meat quality of pigs given a temporary straw bedding of 6, 4, or 2 weeks before slaughter or no straw.

Quantification of total bacteria, enterobacteria and lactobacilli populations in pig digesta by real-time PCR

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Local polynomial fitting and spatial price relationships: price transmission in the EU markets for pigmeat

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Managing the Risk: Price Protection Through Insurance

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Studies are currently being done to examine whether a price insurance program would work in the hog industry. Producers (for the most part) are willing to pay 1 to 2 dollars per pig for a reasonable insurance due to the wide price fluctuations that have occurred over the past few years (producers tend to remember 1998 and 2002 in particular). Producers wish to guard against scenarios where the hog margin after feed is insufficient to cover the remaining costs. This has occurred before for a period, as long as half a year, and it took even longer to recover from it. Consultations with producers and other related observations suggest there would be good receptivity to having an insurance alternative to add to their available tools in the risk management package, and costs should be held within $1-2/hog to obtain fairly wide coverage.

Effect of feeding food waste-broiler litter and bakery by-product mixture to pigs

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