Characterisation of the microbial diversity in a pig manure storage pit using small subunit rDNA sequence analysis

Posted in: Environment by admin on January 1, 2005 | No Comments

Hog Manure on Forages – Coarse-textured Soil (Zhoda Fertility Trial)

Posted in: Environment by admin on | No Comments

Studies were initiated near Zhoda, MB, to determine the impact of the timing and rate of hog manure
applied to forage grown on coarse textured soils with high water tables. Precipitation and soil
groundwater data were also collected. In Experiment 1, manure treatments equivalent to 0, 60, 90, 120 lb
N ac-1 were applied commencing in the summer of 2002 in summer and fall after forage harvesting; a
treatment consisting of a split application of manure equivalent to 120 lb N ac-1 was also applied (60 lb
ac-1 each in summer and fall). Four replicates were arranged in a completely randomized design. In
Experiment 2, manure was applied at rates equivalent to 0, 100, 200, 300, and 400 lb N ac-1 in spring
2004 in three replicates in a strip plot design. Besides forage yield and quality, the distribution of nitrate-
N and phosphorous in the soil profile was also monitored in both experiments. Forages responded strongly to manure application with respect to nutrient uptake, nutrient content, and
dry matter yield. In Experiment 1, dry matter yields increased considerably as manure application rate
increased, as did nutrient uptake. was a trend in most instances of increasing nutrient content with
increasing manure application rate. Fall-applied manure appeared to produce higher forage yields,
possibly as a result of greater nutrient losses in summer-applied treatments as well as the lack of nutrient
response when dry conditions prevailed during the summer period. Split N application was no more
effective at increasing forage productivity than the 120N treatment when considering productivity over a
production cycle (i.e. fall and summer harvest). Tming of nutrient availability is a key consideration in
attempting to maximize forage productivity. In Experiment 2, for example, it was clear that nutrient
availability was delayed somewhat relative to application date, as indicated by a delay in the
accumulation of nitrate-N in the upper soil profile. Given the lack of leaching observed in Experiment 1
(up to target N rate of 120 lb ac-1), increasing manure application rates may be feasible relative to current
recommendations. Splitting manure application rates may also provide another means of increasing
manure application rates without causing adverse effects to the environment.

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

Posted in: Prairie Swine Centre by admin on | 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

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

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.

Posted in: French Articles by admin on | No Comments

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.

The test-retest reliability of four behavioural tests of fearfulness for quail: A critical evaluation.

Posted in: Welfare by admin on | No Comments

In order to understand the reliability of tests of fearfulness, Japanese quail were tested and retested in four different tests: an emergence test, a novel object test, a novel food test, and a predator surprise test. The results indicated that some of the measures were not reliable. Some examples of inconsistencies included: 1) there was a low correlation between the two tests for latency to extend head into emergence arena during the emergence test, but the number of times they extended there heads into the arena was more consistent; and 2) latency to try a novel food had inconsistent results, but the amount of novel food eaten was more reliable. The use of partial correlations was found to be more useful when attempting to determine test-retest reliability, than Pearson’s coefficient. It appears that the common behavioural indicators of fearfulness do not always have consistent results.

Resting behaviour and displacements in ewes–effects of reduced lying space and pen shape

Posted in: Welfare by admin on | No Comments

Lying space and pen shape were altered in order to determine the effects on resting behaviour and displacements in ewes. Lying space was 0.5, 0.75, of 1.0 m2/ewe and pen shape was either deep or wide. Six groups of four adult sheep were exposed to all of the treatments for a period of 7 days. Total lying time was reduced fro 70 to 63 % when the lying area was reduced from 1.0 to 0.5 m2, and lying time in the deep pens (67.0 %) was longer than in the wide pens (64.5 %). The occurrence of all four ewes lying simultaneously was reduced from 45.4 to 5.9 % as the lying area was reduced. The number of times a ewe displaced a lying ewe (per ewe and 24 hours) increased from 6.4 to 28.9 as the lying area was reduced. Low ranking ewes were lying less often and were more active than the other ewes. Pen shape did not have a significant effect on the behaviour of the ewes, except for lying time. There was a lower lying time for ewes in wide pens compared with ewes in deep pens. Reducing lying space from 1.0 to 0.5 m2/ewe resulting in a reduction in lying time, less synchronized resting, and a large increase in the number of displacements. There were no significant effects of pen shape, except for lying time.

The effect of flooring type and social grouping on the rest and growth of dairy calves.

Posted in: Welfare by admin on | No Comments

The effect of housing calves and pairs and flooring on growth and rest behaviours of one week old calves was examined. The calves were housed individually or in pairs on concrete floors or were housed individually with rubber mats on the floors for 20 weeks. All treatments were provided with wood shavings for bedding. The total daily duration, bout frequency and mean duration of total resting, resting on the side or resting on the stomach were noted through video recordings taken at 2, 4, 6, 7, 11, 14 and 21 weeks of age. The effect of time of day was analyzed on week 4, 7, 14 and 21. Mean daily growth was positively correlated with the total time the calves spent resting over the 20-week experimental period. As the calves grew older, the amount of time they spent resting remained the same, however the amount of time they spent resting on their side decreased. The time spent resting around feeding decreased after solid feed was introduced. Housing didn’t affect daily growth or resting behaviour. The daily duration and bout frequency for resting on the side was higher in pairs than individuals (both housed on concrete). There was also no difference in growth or resting behaviour between calves housed on concrete or on rubber mats. However, the provision of wood shavings may have made the concrete flooring comfortable. Adequate rest is needed to maximize growth and the longer a calf rests, the better it will grow. Housing calves in pairs provided them with more space, and they were observed resting on their side more often and for longer.

A note on reaction to novel stimulus and restraint by therapeutic riding horses.

Posted in: Welfare by admin on | No Comments

In this study, therapeutic riding horses (TRH) and jumping horses (JH) were exposed to acute, novel stressors to objectively measure individual reactivity and chronic stress. The responses of TRH and JH were compared when exposed to a restraint and startling stimulus. The restraint involved covering the horse’s head with a hood for one hour, and the startling stimulus (40 cm long red and white synthetic holiday garland shaken with a rustling noise inside the box). During the challenges, horses spent most of their time immobile. During the challenges, a higher average basal HR was found in TRHs compared to JH. During the restraint, average heart rate during pawing was higher than during other behaviours. Lymphocytes decreased in samples taken after the removal of the hood. Overall, there were no differences between TRHs and JHs in their reactions to novel stimuli.

Repeated handling of pigs during rearing. I. Refusal of contact by the handler and reactivity to familiar and unfamiliar humans.

Posted in: Welfare by admin on | No Comments

Pigs housed in groups received different handling treatments for 40 d until slaughter age. Pigs of the human interaction (HI) and refusal of contact (RC) groups were individually introduced into a pen each day, where they remained for 3 min in the presence of a squatted handler. The handler tried to increase progressively physical reciprocal interactions with the HI pigs using eye and body contact and voice. The handler remained immobile and avoided eye contact and used of voice with RC pigs. These pigs were pushed away when they touched the handler. Control pigs remained in their home pens. Over seasons, HI pigs progressively increased physical interactions with the handler, up to 35% of their time. The RC pigs were motivated to interact with the handler as they tried to establish physical contact with the handler throughout the experiment. They increased levels of locomotion, rubbing, immobility, and snout contact with the wall, suggesting that they were frustrated by the refusal of contact. At the end of the experimental period, all pigs were subjected to three human exposure tests, where pigs were exposed to the handler and two other persons, one of which was unfamiliar, in a Latin square design. During this test, behavior of the humans was the same as for the RC treatment. The HI pigs discriminated between the handler and the other persons as indicated by their increased approach behavior toward the handler. Part of the prior handling experience was generalized to other humans as indicated by higher levels of proximity of HI and RC pigs with the different persons compared with controls. Physical contact with the human was associated with increased heart rates. Two possibilities are that these two characteristics are part of a general behavioral/physiological reactive profile or that contact with humans provokes an arousal or emotional response. Despite this, behavioral data show that pigs are motivated to be in physical contact with a handler, even when the handler consistently refuses contact.