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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:
Predicting Nutrient Requirements Based on Protein Deposition Rate
Posted in: Prairie Swine Centre by admin on January 1, 1996 | No Comments
Behavioural responses of domestic pigs and cattle to humans and novel stimuli.
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Dual Fan, Dual Duct Systems
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Tradeoffs between low energy use and good air quality are unavoidable when designing or operating most types of HVAC systems. Dual Fan, Dual Duct (DFDD) is a high quality system that can offer both good air quality and low energy use at low cost.
These benefits are achieved by use of high air change rates to flush pollutants, elinination of reheat to save energy and use of cost-effective design techniques made feasible by the system’s special characteristics.
Bacterial and fungal flora of dust deposits in a pig building.
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Objectives -The purpose of the study was to investigate the bacterial and fungal flora of dust deposits in a newly built pig grower finisher building. Viable bacterial counts and microbial species found in a barn which had never housed pigs were compared with those in a barn housing 144 pigs.
Methods -The quantitative streak plate method was used to measure viable bacterial counts on nutrient agar or sheep blood agar. Viable bacterial counts of the dust deposits were expressed as the number of colony forming units (CFUs)/mg of dust. Gram positive cocci and Gram negative bacilli were identified by an automated system. Identifications with a confidence interval > 90% were accepted at the species level. Fungi were identified to the genus level with slide culture preparations on cereal agar.
Results -The lowest viable bacterial count (4.8 x 10(4)/mg of dust) was found in the barn with no pigs. In the barn with pigs the highest viable bacterial count (2.1 x 10(4)/mg of dust) was in dust from the top of a partition close to gig activity. Six species of bacteria or fungi were found in dust from the room with no pigs, whereas 22 different microorganisms were detected in dust from the room with pigs. With the exception of Enterobacter agglomerans no other species of the family Enterobacteriaceae was found in dust deposits in this new pig building. Twelve species of Gram positive bacteria were found in the room housing pigs.
Conclusions -The pig is not only a source but also a disperser of airborne bacteria in pig buildings. Speciation of the microbial flora in dust from the pig building suggests that many of the microorganisms were either of human or environmental origin. Nevertheless as some of these microorganisms are known opportunistic pathogens or allergens and because of the documented increased incidence of chronic respiratory symptoms in pig workers, precautions to reduce inhalation of microbial or dust particles by pig workers seem prudent.
On-Farm Socio-economics of Manure Management
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The cost of manure management and environmental protection are difficult to assess and when considering profit maximizing farms, there are no advantages in investing in costly practices to reduce the impact of manure on the environment. Environmental regulations are also considered as measures that reduce the companies’ competitive advantages and could eventually costs jobs. In assessing new ways or technologies that could help solving the environmental impact of manure tools have to be developed and used to make thorough investigations of the situation and final economical analysis that could lead to choices of management practices or techniques. All the steps of manure management have to be investigated from production , handling and processing through manure utilization and all the on-farm costs and benefits have to be considered. Different methods of analysis or tools have to be developed and used in order to help in the choice of manure management practices and those methods are: cost/benefit analysis, mathematical programming and expert systems. Work has to be done to all cost estimates related to different manure management practices usual ones as well a newly developed ones. All this information has to be put together in user-friendly tools in order to help the producers in their manure system choices.
This publication present different analysis methods that have been developed in some areas such as dairy farming and also livestock in general. In order to keep accurate tools, there is an important need for data updates for those analysis systems or computer aids.
Manure Management Effects on Surface and Groundwater
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Since 1992, manure application on cropland has been made on a farm of a swine farrow-to-finish production unit of 200 sow. Monitoring of the surface and groundwater has been made and the results show that most of the nutrient losses occurred as tile flow. Concentration of nutrients have been measured and the average of nitrate-N levels were slightly above the health recommended concentration, 13,8 mg/L compared to 10mg/L. Leaching from commercially fertilized crop ground are generally slightly higher than the value found. The phosphorus concentration averaged 0,6 mg/L. The nutrient losses from runoff was not significant as very little occurred. Testing on groundwater was also done. The results show that higher nitrate concentrations could be measured the years after fall application had been done and when the overapplying manure. The average concentration in ground water for the 3 rates and the two years samples is 13,6 mg/L.
The application rates of nutrients from manure were: for 1992, 157 kg/ha of N and 48 kg/ha P; for 1993, 215 kg/ha of N and 137 kg/ha of P and finally for 1994, 198 kg/ha and 122kg/ha de P. The manure treatments on the plots consisted of no manure, the application rates presented, 2 times the application rates and the final one was 3 times the application rates.
Impact of pre-slaughter withdrawal of vitamin supplements
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Research reported in last yeara
History of U.S. equine welfare and legislation.
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