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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:
Sensory varieties in concentrate diets for stabled horses: Effects on behaviour and selection
Posted in: Welfare by admin on January 1, 2005 | No Comments
There is very little data available about how presenting horses with a concentrate affects their feeding behaviour and whether restricting the variety in the diet affects the foraging behaviour. The study examined how various sensory components of the diet affect the diet selection and the behaviour of horses housed in stables. In the first experiment varied the formulation of the diet. Experiment two varied the flavour and formulation of the diets and experiment three, varied only the flavour of the diet. In two identical stables, horses were provided with a single concentrate diet or four concentrate diets for five minutes. During the five minutes, the behaviour of the horses was videotaped and compared. There were significant differences in the foraging and non-foraging behaviours when the horses were offered a single type or multiple concentrates in all three experiments. The diet that was available during the single selection influenced the diet choice when multiple concentrates were available. The flavour of the diet significantly affected the foraging and non-foraging behaviours. Horses provided with multiple concentrates foraged more frequently and for longer. However, the foraging bouts were much shorter in duration when compared to horses only provided one type of concentrate. The results from this study suggest that stabled horses exhibit and natural patch foraging behaviour when they are offered multiple concentrate diets, even if they only vary in terms of flavour.
Reduction in feather pecking and improvement of feather condition with the presentation of a string device to chickens.
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Feather pecking remains a serious problem in commercial egg production. It has been argued that feather pecking occurs as a result of misdirected pecking, so a possible solution would be to increase the likelihood that such pecking was targeted at another object in the environment rather than to the feathers of conspecifics. Chickens of various strains and ages will readily peck at a device consisting of strands of white string but it is not yet known if pecking at that device would substitute for pecking at conspecifics. Therefore, the effects of providing string devices on feather pecking in an experimental situation (Experiment 1) and on feather condition under commercial conditions (Experiment 2) were examined. In experiment 1, 300 chicks of a high-feather pecking strain of white leghorn-type layers were housed in groups of five in litter-floor pens. The 60 pens were randomly allocated to one of five treatments: devices incorporated in the chicks’ pens continuously from 1 day of age till the end of the experiment at 57 days; devices presented for 4 h per day from 1 day of age; first presented from 22 days of age; first presented from 52 days of age; and finally, devices never presented. Feather pecking was virtually eliminated when the devices remained in the pens from 1 day of age or when they were presented for 4 h per day. Feather pecking was most pronounced among birds that had never received the device whereas its introduction at 22 or 52 days of age yielded intermediate results. This orderly pattern of more pecking at feathers when the device was added at later ages was significant (P < 0.005). In experiment 2, 768 Lohmann LSL laying chickens were housed in rearing cages and 720 were transferred in groups of three to conventional laying chickens when 16 weeks old. The birds were allocated to one of four treatments: devices present from 1 day of age; presented for 24 h every 4 weeks; continuously present from 16 weeks of age; and finally, devices never presented. At 35 weeks of age, hens with access to the device had significantly better plumage condition than those that had never received the device (P < 0.05).In conclusion, the addition of a simple string device to the hens of non-beak-trimmed high-feather-pecking birds decreased feather pecking behaviour (Experiment 1), and to the cages of non-beak-trimmed commercial layers significantly improved feather condition (Experiment 2).
A method for assessing the relative sociability of individuals within groups: an example with grazing sheep.
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Sociability is defined as the tendency to be close to companions and can be quantified by calculating nearest neighbours. A method was developed to quantify relative sociability, which works well for animals that are housed in groups and are easily visible and identifiable. The time an animal spends as the nearest neighbour of other animals is scaled to have an expectation of 1.0 under the null hypothesis of random mixing, which is referred to as the sociability index. Nearest neighbours were identified based on being associated pairs (more often than expected by chance). Independent observation periods are tested for consistency. There were 8 groups of 7 sheep observed for 10, one-hour periods
CQA® and the New Medicated Feed Regulations
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Recently the CQA program was thoroughly reviewed. Changes have been made to the feeding perspective, which includes medicated feeding. There has been an entirely new chapter added that applies to on-farm mixers. There are new regulations set forth on producers obtaining licenses. For more information, refer to the full article.
Panel Presentation: Occupational Health & Safety Inspections
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OH&S exists to make workplaces safer, farms included. There are as many fatalities on the farm as there are in all other workplaces annually in Saskatchewan. The OH&S committee has committed to performing 300 agricultural workplace inspections per year. Items that may be included in these inspections is the workplace responsibility system (OH&S committee), worker training, regulations concerning the workplaces (such as environment, layout, etc.), personal protective equipment, and any dangerous heights (e.g. – feed bins). Hydrogen sulphide regulations can be reviewed, as can biological relations. This involves medications and/or hormones being used, the purpose for use, and conditions for administration (e.g. – is it safe to handle by pregnant workers?).
Implementing a Systematic Approach to Disease Control and Prevention
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As hog farms today move from small-scale to large-scale operations, disease control and prevention needs to be looked at from an overall point of view. The reactionary approach to disease control really only appears to be effective in high-health systems. The Product Based Approach utilizes well-marketed medications of the pharmaceutical companies to “prevent” disease. This makes producers feel secure in that they did everything they could to prevent disease. The current method that is under development is the Systematic Approach, which will be part of the business plan and/or budget. This approach looks at disease as a cost of production and diminished production. To control diseases one must educate the workers, define the background disease status, allow easier information management, and make decisions and take action. Specific disease risks must be taken into account and planned for as well. Investment in this type of system will eliminate excess costs and unnecessary drug use and decrease vulnerability to the impact of pathogens.
Definitions of Ambient Temperature Requirements for Pigs: A Review
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Pigs, like all animals, have an ability to live in a variety of thermal environments. Although pigs can adapt to some degree to different thermal environments, there is a cost to production associated with keeping them outside their comfort zone. During cold stress, pigs consume more feed to maintain their core body temperature (the temperature of their vital internal organs). The extra feed consumed is not used for body weight gain. On the other end of the scale, heat stress will reduce feed intake in the pig; production is reduced in the case of the lactating sow because of the reduction in milk production. It is also observed that pigs, heat stressed in the growing phase, are fatter. There are many factors, which influence the thermal environment of the pig. Some of the more obvious are the temperature outside the barn and artificial heating in the barn. Others that are less obvious include stocking density in the pen, type of flooring and feed intake; however, there are many more. Most of these factors can be manipulated in some way by the producer or by the pig itself to reduce the effects of thermal stress. Although there are values in books, which indicate the optimal temperature ranges for pigs of different body weights and production phases, being able to recognize signs of cold or heat stress in your pigs is the best way to adjust the set point temperature and ventilation rate in your barn rooms.
North America Moves Toward One Market
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Focus too much on the challenging issues that have faced North American agriculture over
the past several years and you might not notice an important long-term development: the agricultural
economies of Canada, Mexico, and the United States are increasingly behaving as if they
form one market. Not only is U.S. agricultural trade with Canada and Mexico on a clear upward
trend, but firms are reorganizing their activities around continental markets for both inputs and
outputs. For example, many North American pastures and feedlots contain animals that have
lived in more than one NAFTA country, and U.S. consumers are purchasing fresh tomatoes and
peppers produced by their neighbors both to the south and to the north.
Trade liberalization under the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement (CFTA, implemented in
1989) and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA, implemented in 1994) is just
one factor behind the growing integration of North American agriculture. To encourage this
trend, decisionmakers in both government and the private sector have pursued greater institutional
and policy coordination. Structural changes within agriculture have also facilitated
integration, as have continued population growth and sustained periods of economic expansion,
which have boosted consumer demand and forced new economic arrangements within
the agricultural and processed food industries.