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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:
Annual Meeting Keynote Address: Animal agriculture and emerging social ethics for animals
Posted in: Welfare by admin on January 1, 2004 | No Comments
Within the past 30 years, the treatment of animals in various areas of human use has emerged as a new social ethical issue. Society’s moral concern has outgrown the traditional ethic of animal cruelty that began in biblical times and is law in civilized societies. There are five main factors, which have caused the emergence of this new social concern. Most importantly, is the emergence of industrial agriculture, which has replaced husbandry-based agriculture. The rise of industrial agriculture has threatened the contract between humans and animals and has resulted in an increase in animal suffering. The existing laws against animal cruelty do not cover the routine suffering that food animals must endure. Therefore, in order to express social concerns regarding animals, a new ethic for animals was required. The ethic for humans has been used as an example for the development of the ethic for animals. The development of laws that ensure the rights of animals has surfaced as a possible vehicle for reform. Otherwise, traditional methods of animal husbandry should return in order to correct the problems created by industrialization.
Coping capacity of dairy cows during the change from conventional to automatic milking.
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In a conventional milking system, two to three times a day, cows are driven into the milking parlor. However, dairy barns are now converting to an automatic milking system (AMS), which allows the cows to voluntarily enter the parlor when they so choose to. The aim of this study was to determine the physiological impact on cows when switching from a conventional to an automatic milking system. The variables recorded were milk composition and yield, heart rate, cortisol (via feces). The first time cows entered the AMS, but were not milked, their heart rate rose approximately 35 beats per minute more than levels recorded in the conventional milking parlor. The first milking was performed on the eighth visit to the AMS and by this time the heart rate had returned to levels seen in the conventional milking parlor. There was a decrease in milk yield during the transition. Milk yields dropped between 8 to 96% (average of 68%) of yields from the previous milking in the conventional parlor. The concentration of cortisol metabolites in the feces remained unchanged during the transition between the two systems. To test the relationship between how the cow was coping and the activity level of the adrenal cortex, and ACTH challenge was performed. Cows that had higher cortisol levels, which means the adrenal cortex is more active, were the cows that had during the first milking in the AMS had lower heart rate elevations, and whose milk yield were only minimally depressed. These results illustrate that there is a wide variation in how the cows copes with the transition between a conventional to an automatic milking system.
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?
Posted in: Production by admin on | No Comments
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.
Greenhouse Gas Odour Emissions from Pig Production Buildings, Manure Storage and Manure Treatment Faciltiies
Posted in: Environment by admin on | No Comments
The general objective of this study was to evaluate methane (CH4), carbon dioxide (CO2) and nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions, and also odours emissions for swine operations in two provinces (Québec and Saskatchewan) under liquid manure management. More specifically, the research has been targeted at: 1. determining GHG and odour emissions from different types of swine production buildings and building floor designs; 2. determining GHG and odour emissions from different types of manure storage facilities, and 3. determining GHG and odour emissions from two manure treatment systems. Greenhouse gas and odour emission results have been expressed in terms of unit animal mass in order to allow for direct comparisons between the different sources. Researchers from four different organizations – the Institut de recherche et développement en agroenvironnement (IRDA), Prairie Swine Centre Inc. (PSCI), Université Laval and the University of Saskatchewan – actively participated in the project.