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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:
10 Steps to Complete a Nutrient Management Plan for Livestock & Poultry Manure.
Posted in: Environment by admin on January 1, 1996 | No Comments
As plant nutrient are essential to assure a field productivity both manure and chemical fertilizers have to be used. Appropriate application rates and also time for application are important parameters to determine in order to obtain optimum crop yields with optimum nutrient quantities. Nutrient management is thus essential to assure optimal recovery of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium by the crop while optimizing economic benefit and minimizing the impact on environment. 10 steps are given in order to achieve a good management plan and they are: 1. manure analysis; 2. soil analysis; 3. consideration of the nitrogen stocked in the soil from previous manure spreading or legume crops; 4. selection of proper spreading technique and time for the operations; 5. determination of application rates for specific fields; 6. selection of the supplemental fertilizers needed; 7. calibration of the spreader; 8. consideration of control measures to prevent erosion, surface runoff and tile drainage contamination; 9. handling and valorization of all the manure produced on the farm; 10. review of your nutrient management plan every years.
This factsheet provides useful information on manure management plan. The basics are given to understand the procedures. However the integration process between the manure analysis and the soil analysis is not presented and requires some knowledge and skill to be realized well and determine the application rates needed with the manure and with supplemental fertilizers.
Judicious Management of Swine Manure for Crop Production.
Posted in: Environment by admin on | No Comments
As animal density has increased considerably in some regions in Quebec, surplus in animal excretion has been experienced for farms while considering nitrogen and phosphorus requirements estimated for crop production. Water quality problems (by pathogenic bacteria, viruses, high nitrogen and phosphorus contents) can result from high application rates of manure as the climate in Quebec is humid and water infiltration and runoff are frequent in the fall and the spring. Soils enrichment with copper and zinc can also cause problems as in a region of high production density, copper content varying from 1 to 12 mg/L has been measured in the water (Boyer River watershed) and the standard for drinking water is 1 mg/L. Even if the pig manure doesn’t provide much organic matter, the soil structure can be improved by an important microbial activity, using the carbon input from manure. Spring manure application and later fall application are the best time in order to optimize nutrients use by the crop and also limit the nutrient losses through runoff and leaching. As the fertilizing value of the manure is almost equivalent to mineral fertilizers value, manure is valuable and should be used optimally in order to limit the environmental impacts and odour nuisance associated with applying.
This article presents well the situation in Quebec associated with excessive manure application that has been done in some regions. Appropriate management of manure in crop production is the way of valorize manure.
Feeding spray-dried plasma in clean and dirty rooms
Posted in: Prairie Swine Centre by admin on | No Comments
A 28-day trial investigated the effects of feeding diets containing spray-dried porcine plasma to 60 weanling pigs (21+/- 3 days of age) in two environments designed to compare disease challenge. Environments were characterized by all in-all out or continuous-flow, onsite nurseries. From day 0 to14 (Phase I) pigs were offered diets containing either 6% spray-dried porcine plasma and 2.3% blood cells or 10% dried skim milk and 7% fish meal followed by appropriate Phase II diets containing either 2.27% blood cells or 5% dried skim milk and 2.5% fish meal, respectively. From days 0 to 14, pigs offered the sprat dried plasma diets showed improved average daily weight gain in both environments. The improvements were greater as a percentage in the continuous flow nursery vs. the all in-all out nursery. As expected, average daily weight gain was greater in the all in all-out than in the continuous-flow nursery from days 0 to 21. Average daily feed disappearance was higher in pigs offered spray dried plasma from days 3 to 7. Average daily feed disappearance was also higher in the all in-all out vs. the continuous-flow up to day 21. There was no effect of diet in gain: feed ratios for any period. However, gain to feed ratios were higher in the continuous-flow nursery from days 3 to 28. Insulin-like growth factor 1 levels were higher in the all in-all out nursery on days 3 and 14. Mean body temperatures of pigs offered spray dried plasma tended to be lower 3 days post-weaning, however, this trend did not continue. Neither environment nor diet affected health score, fecal score, total serum immunoglobulin or the humoral response to vaccination against KLH at weaning. The results of this experiment showed that feeding spray dried plasma improved growth performance in pigs reared in a slow growing, continuous-flow environment and also in faster growing pigs in an all in-all out environment.
Behavioural time-budgets and beak related behaviour in floor-housed turkeys.
Posted in: Welfare by admin on | No Comments
New concept for the evaluation of biogas development in third world countries
Posted in: Energy by admin on | No Comments
Sustainability Issues of U.S. Swine Production
Posted in: Production by admin on | No Comments