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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:
Short-term spatial memory in the domestic horse
Posted in: Welfare by admin on January 1, 2004 | No Comments
This study was conducted to determine if horses could successfully remember where to find food after a delay in seeing and hearing where the food was initially placed. Twelve horses were tested individually in an arena. At the beginning of the test, the horses were maintained immobile in the arena where they could see and hear the food being delivered in one of two positions in the arena. The horse’s ability to find the food was tested immediately after the food was delivered and after a delay of 10 seconds after the food was delivered. Each test was repeated 40 times initially and repeated 40 times three months later. The results indicated that horses were successful in the immediate release tests, but not in the 10 second delayed release tests. The authors concluded that horses may not have a prospective type of memory and therefore limitations in recall abilities. These results are important to consider for the welfare of horses and during training, such as problems in overestimating their mental abilities and the effects of delaying reinforcements.
Feather pecking in laying hens: new insight and directions for research?
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Based on behaviour, physiology, development and genetics, the new findings and future research studies on feather pecking in laying hens were outlined in the this article. Four topics were covered, first being the relationship between gentle and severe feather pecking. The occurrence of gentle feather pecking at a young age was not a good predictor as to whether or not the hens would feather peck later on in life. Researchers than compared the response to restraint of hens that were highly prone to feather peck with those that were not likely to feather peck. Birds that were more likely to feather peck tended to be proactive to restraint, which means they develop rigid routine and are motivated by internal mechanisms. While hens that were not prove to feather peck tended be reactive to restraint, which means that these hens have a more flexible behavioural repertoire and respond more to external stimuli. This research may lead to identifying hens that are more likely to feather peck. Researchers than examined the underlying cause of feather pecking, and found that it could be how the hens redirect the motivation to ground peck (either because of the inability to dustbathe or forage). However, feather pecking in young hens could also be a form of social exploration. Feather pecking is known to be a trait that can be passed onto the offspring. By combining the efforts from various research disciplines, may by the most practical way to prevent feather pecking in the future.
Welfare implications of avian osteoporosis
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In the mid-20th century, after laying hens started being housed in cages, cage layer fatigue began appearing. It was discovered that cage layer fatigue was due to excessive bone loss, causing osteoporosis and bone brittleness. The ribs, keel and thoracic vertebrae are common sites for bone fractures to occur. Sometimes paralysis also occurs due to vertebral fracture damaging the spinal cord. Highly productive caged laying hens inevitably develop osteoporosis. Metabolic deficiencies of calcium, phosphorous, or vitamin D can worsen the condition. Increased physical activity among laying hens has been shown to reduce the incidence of osteoporosis and cage layer fatigue. Bone weakness may have a genetic component that can be selected against and therefore reduce the incidence of this problem. Pain, debility, and mortality are some of the welfare concerns. Also, with increased bone brittleness there are welfare concerns about catching and transporting these hens. Hunane on-farm killing methods for spent hens should be considered a high priority research agenda.
Pathogens in the Environment
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A study completed recently for the Manitoba Livestock Manure Management Initiative and the Manitoba Rural Adaptation Council by Dr. R. A. Holley at the University of Manitoba reviewed the results of a lot of research on the risk of intestinal illness in humans from pathogens originating in both humans and animals. The study consisted of a review and analysis of the literature. It was not based on any laboratory or field experiments of its own although several databases were analyzed. The study revealed that a lot is known on the subject but it also revealed significant gaps in the science and in surveillance data. Dr. Holley’s study focused initially on the mechanisms for contracting enteric illness in humans from animals through food, water, air and direct contact with animals and humans. One observation made by Dr. Holley is that, notwithstanding that Canada’s export of pork is increasing (while domestic consumption remains constant); food-borne illness caused by pork in Canada is declining. This would suggest that hog producers and pork processors are doing a good job. He cautions, on the other hand, that surveillance data is not very comprehensive and that more confidence could be placed in this observation if the data were more robust. Dr. Holley concludes that, “given the currently available data, pork is not considered a major source of food-borne infection in Canada and reports of illness from any food contaminated by hog manure do not exist in North America”. However, he warns, “the potential exists for manure to be an important vector”. He expresses concern that standard culture methods for pathogens are periodically unreliable and suggests that there is a need to improve sensitivity and specificity. Dr. Holley’s study confirmed the knowledge that pathogens can migrate for significant distances and at high rates in the environment. More specifically, he found that some studies have shown that pathogens from manure, using currently acceptable application practices, can travel through soil and reach receiving waters, which are subsequently used as public water sources. He declares that “although it is impossible to predict the mobility of these pathogens in soil in Manitoba, it is clear that the potential exists for microorganisms to be transported in the environment and to contaminate regional water supplies.” He notes, in concluding, that the regulation of manure management in most jurisdictions is based on nutrients and odour rather than risk from pathogens.
AI Success in Swine
Posted in: Production by admin on | No Comments
Good heat checking can help optimize the timing of insemination, and can lessen the impact of poor sperm/semen quality and aged semen. Some desirable technologies include the ability to freeze semen, ovulation timing, sexed semen, and single service AI. Intra-uterine insemination (IUI) can be done surgically into the tip of the uterine horns. The advantage to this is the minimal number of sperm required is far, far less than conventional intra-cervical techniques. This is beneficial because it improves the number of doses per boar ejaculate and could make use of frozen/thawed semen. Proper storage, extender, and handling of semen may affect the quality of the sperm. The attributes studied at commercial boar studs include motility, % abnormal cells, and sperm concentration. Errors can result from cold semen disrupting the motility analysis. All of these examinations give an estimate of viable sperm cells per dose at the time of insemination. The ability to freeze semen would be huge for the industry. This would allow producers to back up quality semen in case of an emergency or transport semen across borders without worrying about time. The main problem that exists today is freezing of semen affects the motility and survivability of the sperm. Sexed semen is one of the most desired reproductive technologies. Work is being done to accomplish this, but all such attempts have been unsuccessful.
Value at Risk: What is it and How Can it be Used?
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The Value at Risk (VaR) risk management tool focuses specifically on the downside risk facing an operation and measures these risks in financial terms by using a single monetary value that is easy to interpret. The process of risk management includes identifying the sources of risk, measuring the effects of the risk sources, and managing the risk. To identify, producers must identify the mains sources of risks that will impact a financial measure of interest to the operation. These risks should have potential impact on financial success and have the potential to be managed. To measure, the probabilities of each outcomes occurrence must be measured. This can be achieved by using historical production data such as the data collected when using programs such as PigCHAMP. Measuring the distributions of historical hog prices, feed prices, and production numbers will allow us to determine how often each value has occurred and how widely the values have ranged. From here an estimate can be drawn about how often the values are going to occur. The combined effect is then measured using computer software. From here strategies can be employed to choose the best risk management strategy. VaR can be used in an operation that is having liquidity problems and is approaching its capacity to obtain financing. It can also be used when a manager has multiple risk management strategies to choose from or when negotiating a price contract. It is important for managers to consider using VaR in addition to other risk management tools and methods currently used by the operation. It strictly focuses on managing an operations downside risk rather than dealing with maximizing financial performance and choosing the most profitable contract or risk management strategy.
The effect of wheat phosphorus content and supplemental enzymes on digestibility and growth performance of weaner pigs
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A 2×4 factorial experiment was conducted with the respective factors being wheat phosphorus (P) content (low-P variety: 2.52 g/kg DM, and high-P variety: 3.76 g/kg DM) and enzyme supplementation (no enzyme, xylanase, phytase, and xylanase plus phytase). The enzymes were xylanase (Porzyme® 9300, minimum activity 4000 U/g endo-1,4-B-xylanase) and phytase (PhyzymeTM XP, activity 4100 U/g phytase). Eighty male weaner pigs (Landrace×Large White, 5.4±0.07 kg) were fed an identical pre-trial diet for 1 week and then received their respective experimental diet for 3 weeks. All diets contained 610 g wheat/kg and similar concentrations of calculated digestible energy (14.2 MJ/kg), available lysine (0.78 g/MJ DE), available P (3.2 g/kg) and Ca:P (1.46:1). Collection of faeces was made for three consecutive days from day 14 for determination of digestibility, using titanium dioxide as an indigestible marker. The main effect of wheat P content on the coefficient of total tract apparent digestibility (CTTAD) of DM, CP, energy, P and Ca was not significant (P > 0.05). Enzyme supplementation, as a main effect, influenced the CTTAD of DM (P < 0.01) and energy (P < 0.01), such that xylanase plus phytase decreased their CTTAD. Xylanase plus phytase improved the CTTAD of P and Ca in the high-P wheat variety diet but not in the low-P wheat variety diet (interaction P < 0.001 and P < 0.05, respectively). For performance, significant improvements (P < 0.05) were only seen in week 1 of the feeding trial. In summary, the wheats used in this study responded differently to xylanase and phytase, and a synergistic effect of xylanase plus phytase supplementation was not significant for either digestibility or pig performance.