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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:
Odor and Gas Release from Anaerobic Treatment Lagoons for Swine Manure
Posted in: Environment by admin on January 1, 2003 | No Comments
Producers Increasingly Turn to Manure Haulers
Posted in: Environment by admin on | No Comments
Spreading manure is becoming cost prohibitive for individual producers who don’t want to incur hefty fines for making mistakes since Iowa lawmakers passed legislation last year toughening environmental laws. Commercial manure haulers and businesses that will draw up manure management plans and take soil and manure samples, etc are now becoming lucrative businesses to be in. New legislation where producers can incur fines of $5,000 for each day of violation if their manure management plan is not updated annually has made these businesses vital for future production. Other regulations include, top-applied manure cannot be spread closer than 750 feet from a neighbor’s home and 200 feet from sink holes and drainage ditches. It is not only producers who are incurring some new costs but the haulers as well. They must be certified and pay $200 to attend a yearly refresher course on rules and regulations given by Iowa State University Extension. Even with these extra costs, there still are saving being seen. ISU Extension estimates that applying manure instead of commercial fertilizer to your crops still saves $50 to $60 per acre.
Animal Waste Treatment Using Duckweed
Posted in: Environment by admin on | No Comments
Water quality impacts of burying livestock mortalities
Posted in: Environment by admin on | No Comments
Economic–Environmental Tradeoffs in Swine Finishing Operations
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This study examines the cost effectiveness of 81 alternative manure management systems for a swine
finishing operation in reducing three pollutants associated with livestock waste: ammonia, nitrogen and phosphorus. The results are presented in terms of the tradeoff between the levels of these pollutants (environmental indicator) and the economic returns to the producer. The levels of the three manure residuals cannot be reduced by more than half from the present levels under the profit-maximizing system for each farm size. Further reduction would require changes in hog numbers to reduce the volume of manure and consequently residual levels. However, the feasible reductions in residuals can be achieved at relatively low cost. Larger farms tend to have lower abatement costs as the percentage reduction in residuals increase. The attempt to reduce more than one of the residuals simultaneously is complicated by the conflicting effects of alternative manure management systems on ammonia and nitrogen levels.
Enzyme supplementation and feed processing provides solutions for low quality grains
Posted in: Prairie Swine Centre by admin on | No Comments
Nutritional quality of wheat and barley can vary substantially. Ignoring this variation can economically impact swine producers by reducing growth performance of the animals. Two solutions have been derived to allow feeding of low quality wheat and barley while maintaining growth performance, correcting the diet formulation to achieve the formulated diet digestible energy (DE) content, or enzyme supplementation. For both solutions a correct prediction of DE is critical. An increase in fibre resulted in decreased energy digestibility and reduced DE as expected, enforcing the importance of ingredient evaluation. The range in DE of wheat reflects a range in economic value of more than $15.00/tonne of wheat used for swine feed.
Wheat supplemented with carbohydrase enzyme should help the pig to digest energy because negative effects of fibre fractions on energy digestibility will be alleviated. Digestibility was improved in two of the three samples, further stressing the importance of ingredient evaluations. Particle size also affects energy digestibility as digestive enzymes have greater access to nutrients in finer particle sizes. Low quality wheat has a greater fibre content and lower energy digestibility than high quality wheat. The above solutions can help minimize the effects of low quality wheat.
The dose response to phytase inclusion in diets from growing swine
Posted in: Prairie Swine Centre by admin on | No Comments
A study was conducted to define growth response of growing pigs to four levels of a unique, new, phytase enzyme and to determine how critical the Ca: available P ratio is to optimizing the utilization of the phytase enzyme in practical swine diets. Eighteen different diets were used (5 levels of phytase plus a positive control, at 3 different Ca:P ratios) for a 28-day growth and digestibility experiment. Neither performance (ADG, ADFI, feed conversion) nor P digestibility was affected by the Ca concentration in the diet. This result was unexpected and will require more research in the future. The improvement in ADG, ADFI and feed conversion with the inclusion of phytase reached a plateau at 250 U/kg inclusion rate. Phosphorus digestibility was improved in a linear manner with each incremental increase in phytase addition. The inclusion of 250 U/kg phytase in the diet reduced the amount of total phosphorus excreted in manure and increased phosphorus digestibility.
Relation between early fear- and anxiety-related behaviour and maternal ability in sows.
Posted in: Welfare by admin on | No Comments
This study tested the hypothesis that sows that were less fearful of humans and novel objects at 8 weeks of age would have better mothering abilities which would result in higher reproductive success. Eight-nine gilts were tested in a human approach test and in a novel object approach test. Of the 89 sows tested, only 30 were bred and their subsequent farrowing productivity was recorded. To determine the effect fear and anxiety would have on gilt productivity the following parameters were monitored at farrowing: the duration of farrowing, time interval between piglets birth, the number of times the sows lied on top of or crushed a piglet while she was farrowing, the number of liveborn, stillborn piglets and piglets deaths after birth until weaning. Increased fear of humans (‘fear’) was associated with longer farrowing durations, larger differences in the time interval between the birth of piglets. As the length of time for a sow to farrow her litter increased, there was an increase in the number of piglet deaths prior to weaning. Gilts that were more fearful of humans also had more stillborn piglets and more piglets die prior to weaning. Fear of a novel object (‘anxiety’) was also associated with a higher number of stillborn piglets. It was concluded that fear of humans in reproductive animals could potentially lead to a decrease in productivity.