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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:
Using Spatial Econometrics to Assess the Impact of Swine Production on Residential Property Values
Posted in: Production by admin on January 1, 2004 | No Comments
NUTRITIONAL EVALUATION OF MANITOBA-GROWN CORN HYBRIDS FOR SWINE
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Wheat and barley are the main sources of energy in swine diets in Western Canada. However, the availability of other grains such as corn, which is an excellent energy source, should afford pork producers an opportunity to better manage dietary nutrient supply and therefore efficiency of production. Moreover, using locally grown feedstuffs in swine rations is not only likely to be cost effective but also offers a means to effectively utilize nutrients and minimize the environmental impact of pork production.
Although corn is originally from the tropics, plant breeders have been successful at developing varieties that can grow well in areas with a short planting season like Manitoba (Manitoba Agric., 2004). Based on corn heat units (CHU), which is a measure of useful heat required for growth and development of corn, Manitoba can be divided into 10 regions with CHU ranging from 1800 – 2800. With the annual minimum requirement of 2200 CHU needed to produce grain corn, six regions in Manitoba support the production of grain corn. These six regions make up 95.3% of the total arable land in Manitoba, thus, a larger part of Manitoba support the production of grain corn.
It is well known that nutritional composition of feed ingredients vary from region to region
(Singh et al., 2000; Kuo et al. 2001; Schmidt et al., 2002) due to factors such as temperature, soil
types, soil fertility, management practices, hybrids and many more. For this basic reason, it is
important that ingredients grown within a region are well characterized in terms of their nutritive
value so as to optimize their use in livestock feeding. An important question that is yet to be
addressed with respect to corn is how differences in CHU might influence its nutritive value. In fact,
the available data on the nutritional value of corn for swine is primarily based on values derived for
US-grown corn. Therefore, a current research project at the University of Manitoba, which is
supported in part by the Manitoba Corn Growers Association, is characterizing the nutritive value of
Manitoba-grown corn for swine.
This research is expected to provide useful information for formulating nutritionally adequate
swine diets containing Manitoba-grown corn varieties. Providing such data will promote the use of
locally grown corn in swine diets thus benefiting both the grain grower and pig producer. Data on
carcass characteristics will be useful in guiding the use of corn in feeding programs for growing finishing pigs.
Livestock Manure Storage
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Specific government regulations are in place for th construction and the operation of manure storage structures. Producers must be capable of storing livestock manure until it can be applied to crop land. This fact sheet serves to answer basic question people may have regrading the development of intensive hog facilities. Why is Manure Stored? What are the environmental concerns about manure storage? What about odour from stored manure? How is Manure stored? Are there specific reuirements for manure storage? How big must liquid manure storage structure be? Are manure storage structures inspected? Livestock manure can be managed in an environmentally sound manner. By storing manure the farmer can use as fertilizer as the most appropriate and effective time in the crop production cycle. When constructed in accodance with regulation, inspected annually and operated with care, manure storage structures provide environmental proection during the expected life time of the operation.
Survey: Challenge is Deciding Proper Manure Option
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Swine waste treatment by self-heating aerobic thermophilic bioreactors
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On-farm comparison of incinerators for dead animal
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The recent increase in cost of dead stock collection services on the farm has made incineration become an interesting alternative. Three manufacturers of Québec’s province designed on-farm incinerators and had them evaluated under the instigation of the FPPQ (Québec’s Pork Producers’ Federation). The three incinerators assayed in this campaign were the Brûle-Ô-Max, Éco-Concept and Max-Flame apparatus. According to the assay, these three models showed, respectively: a capacity of 454kg, 454kg and 350kg, an average loading rate (relatively to their maximum capacity) of 83%, 86% and 91%, a cycle duration of 6h20min, 6h18min and 5h09min, an incineration rate of 63,6kg/h, 62,6kg/h and 41,2kg/h, and a propane consumption rate of 0,17, 0,16 and 0,40 liter of propane per kilogram of dead stock. All three incinerators had the two combustion chambers and the particle emission rate required by Québec’s regulations, did not emit any smoke or odours during incineration and maintained a temperature of 1000°C in the gas combustion chamber (where the residence time was around one second). The ashes produced represented 3 to 4% of the incinerated material’s mass. Fissuring of the firebricks and airtightness problems were noted on the Éco-Concept and Brûle-Ô-Max incinerators, which would require monitoring of the inner covering durability. Considering the building of a shelter, the addition of a temperature recorder and performing an atmospheric emission test every five years, the incineration costs varied from $0,14/kg to $0,25/kg for a farrow-to-finish farm with 600 sows, to over $1,00/kg for a finisher pig farm of 1000 pigs.
Enzymatic Hydrolysis of Organic Phosphorus in Swine Manure and Soil
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