P.I.G Tour Quickly Becoming Teacher's Pet

Posted in: Prairie Swine Centre by admin on January 1, 2005 | No Comments

If its first year of operation is any indication, The Prairie Swine Centre’s Pork Interpretive Gallery (P.I.G.) is well on its way to building a well-deserved reputation as a valuable teaching tool for Saskatchewan educators. Located at the Prairie Swine Centre’s Elstow Research Facility, a 600-sow farrow-to-finish hog operation, the Pork Interpretive Gallery allows tour participants unprecedented access to an intensive hog operation. This access is made available through a unique viewing gallery that ‘bypasses’ biosecurity concerns at the barn.

In fact biosecurity is not compromised, but rather, the viewing gallery is accessed through a separate, outside entrance that leads up a flight of stairs to what would normally be the barn’s attic. But thanks to a stroke of genius and a few structural modifications, the attic became a segregated viewing gallery, aptly known as the P.I.G.
Geared towards students from the Grade 5 to Grade 9 level, the tour has some very eye-catching and interactive signage to captivate the students’ attention, and is guided by knowledgeable and friendly interpreters.

“Hats off to the interpreters, they were amazing,” says Leslie Sichello, a Grade 5 teacher at Silverwood Heights Elementary School in Saskatoon. “They were so patient and they provided all of the answers that the kids wanted to know. They were able to anticipate what kids of things would really capture a Grade 5’s brain.”
Kandace Chopty, a Grade 5 teacher at Watrous Elementary School was so impressed with her first visit to P.I.G., she made a return trip this past school year. “The kids learned some new things about the pork industry,” Chopty says. “Even though they are rural children, there was still stuff there that they learned.”

“I guess this year the highlight was of course we saw the pigs being born. They were right there, noses pressed to the glass, observing it,” she chuckles. “Of course they didn’t want to leave that area, that was by far the highlight of the day.”

Regardless if the touring students come from an urban or rural setting, the P.I.G. tour seems to provide a valuable learning experience for any and all students. “None of our students were from a farm background so it was very new to them,” said Cliff Adelman, an Agriculture 20 teacher at Lutheran Collegiate Bible Institute (LCBI) in Outlook. “They loved it,” “It very much changed their perception,” he adds. “They now know when they eat pork what kind of a place it comes from.”

“A student from Toronto thanked me especially for it, he said ‘I know where my food comes from now, I never really thought about it before.’ So it’s excellent.” Despite targeting its message largely to grade school students, the P.I.G. tour is also adaptable enough to be beneficial to university veterinary medical students, says U of S vet med professor Joe Stookey. “All of the responses back from the students was excellent,” says Stookey, who took out 70 second-year veterinary students as part of their introduction to swine production. “And in fact I’ve had requests from other years wanting to do the same thing. Some classes felt they missed out on it.” “And the interpreters were great,” Stookey adds, concurring with Sichello’s earlier comments. “We had some pretty sophisticated questions, I would guess compared to grade school or high school questions, and there wasn’t anything that went unanswered.”
Not only is the actual tour a delight for teachers, but the P.I.G. is beneficial to teachers even before the field trip begins, says Sichello.

“The documents that they sent out ahead of time that had everything connected to curricular objectives was very well planned as well,” she says. “They knew exactly what this would connect to in health and lifestyles.”
“So the kids were prepared and they just loved it,” Sichello says, adding that the P.I.G. tour was her best field trip of the year. “It was really good.” For more information on or to book your tour with the Pork Interpretive Gallery, please call P.I.G. Tour manager, Deb Ehmann-PIG-TOUR (1-866-744-8687), or visit www.PIGTour.ca

Economic Impact of Research in the Swine Industry

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Today’s pork industry is global in nature, and pork producers find themselves always looking for areas of competitive advantage. One significant area of competitive advantage is through the early adoption of research results. Producers who are successful in identifying and implementing new technologies and management strategies create an advantage through lowering their cost of production, or increasing the amount of revenue generated. However, the perceived financial risks and rewards may limit technological action. In order to provide more detail on the economic impact of research, Prairie Swine Centre in conjunction with the George Morris Centre developed an analytical tool to help provide a more detailed analysis of the economic benefit of research conducted at Prairie Swine Centre.

This financial model has the ability to simulate the economic impact and change in cost and revenue structures, by applying Prairie Swine Centre research results to commercial farms of various sizes. Estimating the economic impact of research on the commercial farm is extremely important when adopting new technologies or management strategies. To value the economic impact of research, a number of Prairie Swine Centre experiments between 1999-2004 were analyzed. In total 22 projects were selected for a detailed financial analysis, with the final result being the net benefit of specific research projects. Research projects were then prioritized in terms of net benefit per hog marketed and ease of adoption.

Throughout the 1999-2004 time period, specific research projects generated a range of net financial benefit to pork producers from $0.11 – $8.84 per hog marketed. In addition, approximately 25% of the projects analyzed generated a net benefit of at least $2.00 per hog marketed, while an additional 25% of research projects generated a return in excess of $1.00 per hog marketed. The overall objective of such a analytical tool is quite simply to assist pork producers in identifying ways to minimize costs and maximize revenues through: 1) Identifying those technologies that can be applied on their operation, and 2) Prioritize their implementation in terms of ease of adoption.

Research Results
In order to estimate the impact of research on different types of operations, ‘default’ farms of various size were developed based on industry data. It is very important to note there tends to be greater variability, in per hog costs and revenues, between similar sized operations than across different operation size. This is a function of different cost structures (example, related to age of facility), ability to adopt new technologies, and management styles. Table 1 provides a detailed economic evaluation for each research project, summarizing the range and average value (from default) on net income. Average net returns for all projects varied from $0.14 to $6.23 per hog marketed, while the minimum and maximum range in returns vary from $0.05 to $11.50 per hog marketed, depending on specific research criteria. Net benefit of each project was calculated independently; there was no attempt to look at the additive or competing effect of multiple projects implemented simultaneously.

Ease of Adoption
Pork producers in Canada are recognized as innovative, many could be classified as early adopters of new information. With this in mind, the 22 research projects were evaluated for their ease of adoption, as seen in Table 2. Ease of adoption is defined in terms of the time, labour and capital required to implement the new research information on the commercial farm. Three classifications were created: Easy, Moderate and Difficult. We further describe “Easy” projects as those which can be implemented within 1-3 months, require little labour and little or no capital; “Moderate” can be implemented within 3-12 months, but still require little labour or capital; and “Difficult” projects require greater than 12 months to implement, and is either labour and/or capital intensive. Evaluating this list on the basis of ease of adoption may help to focus efforts on these projects which can provide immediate payback.

Impact on the Industry
Using this three-level description we estimated the extent to which the industry would adopt the research results. Easy projects, such as switching between wheat classes for starter diets, or adjusting water nipples to reduce water wastage, were estimated to be adopted by 80% of the industry. Moderate adoption projects included changing energy levels in the diet, require the specialized services of a nutritionist and perhaps pen reconfiguration. These “Moderate” adoption projects were estimated to be adopted by 40% of the industry. There were very few projects deemed to be Difficult to adopt. For example novel ingredients like mustard meal can be difficult to obtain on a regular basis, or in the case of moving to large group sow housing systems, extensive barn renovation or rebuilding is required to adopt this technology. These “Difficult” adoption projects were estimated to be adopted by 10% of the industry.

Table 3 summarizes the combination of improvement in net returns (over default) as described in Table 1 with the assumed levels of adoption for each research project. This provides an estimate of the value of Prairie Swine Centre research to the western Canadian pork industry. For example, “Effect of Starter Feeding Regime on Variability in Body Weight and Performance in the Nursery”, is adopted on a Moderate basis (by 40% of the industry), and provides a net return benefit of $1.22 per pig marketed, and assuming the annual marketings of 10 million hogs in western Canada, the benefit annually to the industry for this one project is $4.88 million.

The Bottom Line
Research pays big dividends. Applied near market research conducted at Prairie Swine Centre for the pork industry has and continues to provide significant benefit to pork producers and the entire pork industry. All pork producers will not be able to adopt all research results, in addition not all research projects are completely additive. Pork producers would still realize a significant improvement to their bottom line through the incorporation of any number of research results. If only 10% of the benefit was to be adopted it would improve net return over $3.00 per hog marketed. Prairie Swine Centre would like to acknowledge Saskatchewan Agriculture and Food for their funding of this project.

Impact économique de la recherche dans l’industrie porcine.

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Les producteurs de porcs cherchent continuellement des secteurs où ils peuvent gagner un avantage compétitif. L’un de ces secteurs est obtenu par l’adoption hâtive des résultats de recherche. La possibilité de baisser les coûts de production et de faire grimper les revenus par l’incorporation et l’usage de nouvelles technologies génère un grand intérêt dans l’industrie porcine. Cependant, les risques financiers et les bénéfices perçus peuvent limiter l’étendue de l’adoption technologique. Le Prairie Swine Centre avec le George Morris Centre ont développé un outil analytique pour aider à fournir plus de détails sur l’impact économique des résultats de recherche. Ce modèle peut simuler l’impact économique en appliquant des résultats de recherche du Prairie Swine Centre aux différentes tailles d’élevages commerciaux. Cette information permet au producteur d’évaluer les technologies courantes qui conviendraient le mieux à leur élevage. Estimer l’impact économique sur un élevage est très important quand il s’agit d’implanter de nouvelles technologies. Vingt-deux expériences du Prairie Swine Centre effectuées entre 1999 et 2004 ont été sélectionnées pour une analyse financière détaillée pour pouvoir évaluer l’impact économique de la recherche sur l’industrie porcine. Ces expériences ont alors été priorisées en termes de bénéfices nets par porc vendu et par facilité d’adoption. Nous avons découvert que les projets de recherche spécifiques sélectionnés entre 1999 et 2004 ont généré des bénéfices nets aux producteurs allant de $0,11-$8,84 par porc vendu. De ces projets analysés, 25% ont généré au moins 2,00$/porc vendu et un autre 25% ont généré plus de $1,00/porc vendu. En général, l’objectif principal était d’assister les producteurs de porcs à identifier des façons de minimiser les coûts et de maximiser les revenus en 1) identifiant les technologies, 2) priorisant les actions en termes de facilité d’application et 3) en les implantant de façon stratégique. La facilité d’adoption des expériences a été divisée en trois catégories : Facile, Modéré et Difficile. Il a été estimé que 80% des expériences dans la catégorie facile ont été adoptées par des producteurs de porcs commerciaux, 40% des expériences de la catégorie modérée et 10% des expériences dans la catégorie difficile. Les bénéfices annuels à l’industrie porcine sont de 160$ millions de dollars; les deux tiers de cette somme sont générés par les catégories facile et modéré de projets adoptés. La recherche rapporte beaucoup de dividendes! L’apport continu de recherche appliquée commerciale effectuée au Prairie Swine Centre bénéficie l’industrie porcine et les producteurs de porcs. Même si tous les producteurs ne sont pas capables d’implanter tous les résultats de la recherche, ils réaliseraient qu’en même une amélioration significative à leur profit par l’incorporation de n’importe quel nombre de résultats de recherche. Si 10% des bénéfices étaient adoptés, cela améliorerait le revenu net de plus de 3.00$/porc vendu.

Economic impacts of reduced pork production associated with the diagnosis of Actinobacillus pleuropneumoniae on grower/finisher swine operations in the United States

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The purpose of this study was to estimate the economic impacts of reduced pork production associated with the diagnosis
of APP on grower/finisher swine operations, by means of a welfare analysis from the perspective of the US society. As a whole, the swine industry may stand to benefit less from increased pork production (associated with eliminating APP) than consumers. Most of the economic surplus lost by consumers (as a result of reduced pork production associated with APP) was transferred to producers as economic gain. Individual swine producers need to compare the costs of
measures intended to control APP with the anticipated benefits of decreased APP. Uncertainty in the survey-based estimate of the production impact of APP was the greatest
contributing factor to the uncertainty in the estimates of the economic effects of APP.
Results of the sensitivity analysis could propel the design of future surveys of pork
producers.

Physiological and behavioural changes in Holstein calves during and after dehorning or castration.

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The behavioural and physiological effects of hot-iron dehorning or dehorning followed by scalpel castration were compared to control and sham procedures and to each other. Twenty-nine calves (17 bull and 12 heifer dairy) were studied. Each animal served as its own control. The control procedure for dehorning and castration involved collecting blood samples with minimal handling. The sham dehorning procedure involved restraint with a halter and being held immobile against a wall, and holding an unheated hot-iron dehorner around the horn bud for between 13-33 s. The actual dehorning procedure used the same method of restraint, but used a heated dehorner placed on the horn bud for between 19 and 52s. The control, sham and actual procedures were all performed on the same day by the same person without anaesthetic. The sham castration procedure was done to mimic the actual procedure except no incision was made. The tail was held upright and the scrotal area was disinfected. This procedure took between 13 and 70 s. The actual procedure was similar to the sham procedure, except there was an incision made into the scrotum and the testes were exposed and removed by manually applied traction. This procedure took between 21 and 79 s. For at least two hours after castration and for 30 minutes after dehorning, cortisol levels remained higher than controls. Initially, the cortisol responses did not differ between castration and dehorning. However, two to four hours after the procedure, cortisol levels were greater for castration than dehorning. Animals kicked and vocalized more during actual castration and dehorning procedures compared to sham procedures. More struggling occurred during actual dehorning than the sham procedure, but occurred less during castration than the sham. There was greater struggling and kicking among dehorned calves compared to castrated calves. Both sham and dehorned calves had higher heart rates compared to the control values. Dairy calves showed greater physiological and behavioural responses, with higher heart rates, cortisol concentrations, greater kicking, vocalizations and struggling compared to responses during the control and sham procedures. Handling differences and prior experience of dehorning could have caused the differences in responses to each procedure.

Impact of male-male competition and morphological traits on mating strategies and reproductive success in broiler breeders

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The goal of this experiment was to determine the effect of male-male competition on broiler breeder mating strategies and reproductive success and to identify behavioral and morphological traits associated with high fertility. Males were kept in groups with no competition (one male and 10 females; 1M), or high male-male competition (three males and 10 females; 3M). For each male we recorded the frequency of matings, forced matings, cloacal contacts and morphological traits (body weight, comb, wattle, tarsus and spur size), together with sperm quality and the reproductive success. Mating frequency consistently increased towards the end of the light phase. Significantly, higher mating activity occurred in 1 M groups compared to 3M groups. Mating frequency of 1M males, however, did not differ from the frequencies of the males with the highest mating frequency in 3M groups. After reducing the number of males from 3M to 1M in the second experimental phase we found significant increase in the mating frequency. This probably was a consequence of the reduction in the level of male-male competition or due to female response to a lower number of males. DNA fingerprinting results indicated that the males with the highest mating frequency did not always sire the most offspring within the group. The males with the highest sperm mobility or largest ejaculate volumes were equally successful. Frequency of forced mating was not affected by the level of competition, but was more likely used by heavier males or those with larger combs and wattles. We did not find any of the studied morphological traits to be reliable indicators of males reproductive potential, although this lack of association may have been affected by relatively low number of males available for this study.

Comparing two concentrate allowances in an automatic milking system

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In automatic milking systems, cows are attracted to concentrate food that is contained in a robot. This not only increases the number of milkings, but also the amount of concentrate food consumed. An increase in concentrate food consumption can affect the cow’s appetite, feeding behaviour and digestion and subsequent milk production. Therefore, this study investigated the effect of two concentrate allowances: 1) the ‘candy concept’ with a minimum amount of concentrate (1.2 kg) to attract the cow, and 2) the maximum of 7 kg of food concentrate per day. Cows in the first treatment consumed approximately 3.5 kg of concentrate per day, and cows in the second treatment consumed approximately 5 kg of concentrate per day. However, the number of voluntary milkings did not differ between the two treatments.

The role of the image of a conspecific in the regulation of stereotypic head movements in the horse

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Mirrors have been shown to decrease the weaving in horses. This study investigated whether it was the horse’s reflected image that caused the reduction or if it was some other property of the mirror. In order to answer this question, six weaving horses were shown three different posters and their responses were recorded. The posters included a life-size image of a horse’s face, the same image cut into 54 squares, which were randomly rearranged (pixilated image) and a white poster with no image. The results indicated that when horses were shown the poster of the horse’s face, weaving was significantly reduced compared to when they were shown the other two posters. Exposure to the poster of the horse’s face also resulted in a reduction of nodding compared to when they were shown the pixilated image. Horses were more alert and spent more time looking at the poster, when the poster of the horse’s face was presented. Greater activity and anticipation of specific events, which may or may not be associated with increased social contact, caused an increase in the intensity of stereotypic head movement. The authors concluded that the timing of stereotypic head movements might be associated with acute frustration as opposed to boredom/lack of stimulation.

Does the use of a device to measure heart rate affect the behavioural responses of lambs to humans?

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Devices used to measure cardiac activity in standardised behavioural tests could be stressful for the animals and therefore affects their responses. However, to date, the impact of carrying such devices has been poorly evaluated. The present experiment examined the impact of a device used to measure cardiac activity on the behavioural responses of handled and non-handled lambs in a standard human test. Furthermore this study evaluated the variations in heart rate in response to human presence and separation. Twenty-one lambs were separated from their dam 12 h after birth. 11 of them received no additional human contact (non-handled) and 10 received additional contact for 1 week and then 1 day a week until 6 weeks. At 6.5 weeks of age, each lamb was submitted twice to a behavioural test. The procedure comprised three phases: the lamb stayed alone for 2 minutes, then for 2 minutes with the familiar stockperson, and then alone for 2 minutes again. The tested lambs were equipped or not with a cardiac device. The results of this study showed that the device used to measure cardiac activity led to a decrease in vocalisations and locomotion. It had only a limited impact on the behavioural differences between handled and non-handled lambs. It reduced slightly the time spent near the stockperson for the non-handled lambs but no effect on the handled lambs. In summary, the device used to measure cardiac activity led to a general decrease in activity but did not affect the difference between handled and non-handled lambs. Consequently, this method seems to be appropriate for further exploring artificially reared lambs’ perception of humans, with few risks of behavioural alteration.

Impact of dried skim milk in production diets on Lactobacillus and pathogenic bacterial shedding in growing-finishing swine

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