Pork Insight Articles

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Reduction of Odorous Compounds in Fresh Pig Slurry by Dietary Control of Crude Protein

Posted in: Environment by admin on January 1, 1996 | No Comments

See the comment of: Control of Odours by Dietary Manipulation, from the same authors in Ammonia and Odour Control from Animal Production Facilities. Proceedings of the International Symposium. Vinkeloord, The Netherlands. October 6-10, 1997. p.267-272.
This experiment was a bit different in the feed composition than newer one but the results are similar in the reduction of odorant compounds..

Health Hazard Affecting the Animal Confinement Farm Worker

Posted in: Environment by admin on | No Comments

This article focuses on animal confinement workers to give occupational health nurses a better understanding of what these workers do and identify the potential risks to their health. It begins by describing the environment of an animal confinement facility. They identify the primary areas that may be hazardous. These are the close contact between animals and human workers and the wastes generated by the large number of animals in confinement. It describes poultry confinement facilities, how they are run and describes the hazards within these buildings. Health hazards in poultry operations include aerosols and allergenic and immunologic agents, such as dust, animal dander, fecal material, litter or bedding, animals feeds as well as pollen and mold spores that will grow in this environment. Another hazard in poultry operations are gases produced by degradation of droppings, animal respiration and building operations.
They also look at swine confinement facilities much in the same way. First they describe what swine confinement facilities look like and how they are run and then go on to describe the hazards. The hazards are much the same and include gases and aerosols. Added to the hazards list is noise. Finally the role of the occupational health nurse is described and it gives suggestions and recommendations on what animal confinement workers should do to protect themselves while working. Occupational health nurses have a unique position in the rural community to enhance confinement farm workersa

Housing and behaviour in gilts around the time of farrowing

Posted in: Prairie Swine Centre by admin on | No Comments

Farrowing crates are designed to restrict a sowa

The Effect of Sawdust and Straw on Composting Swine Carcasses.

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As only two methods for carcasses disposal are accepted in Ontario: rendering and burial (carcasses covered with at least 0.6 m (2 ft) of soil), composting has been studied as an other alternative. The experiment was realized at the Ridgetown College of Agricultural Technology where two composting protocols (fill for 2 months, compost 2 months turn and compost further for 2 other months; fill for 3 months, turn and compost further for 3 months) were tested and sawdust and straw were used as substrate/cover. 8 replications were done and 224 carcasses (192 market pig and 32 sow carcasses) were used where each compost heap received 6 carcasses > 100kg and 1 sow > 200kg. Observations showed that the composting process released low level of odour, resulted in fairly complete breakdown of the carcasses when using sawdust and that the demineralization of the skeletal components was good particularly when the sawdust was used. Temperatures were higher using sawdust compared to straw (60 vs. 53 C) and composting continued year round. Composting conditions were kept during the winter however, starting a compost cycle during severe cold winter conditions is not recommended. Further investigations are needed to evaluate the potential for disease transmission to the herd; to evaluate the impact of leachate to the environment; to evaluate other substrates; to develop simpler and less expensive protocol; and to evaluate the performance of chopped straw vs. long straw as sawdust is not always available at prices that can be compared to straw.
The composting process is interesting however as no composting cycle should be started in the cold winter period, this technique doesn’t give a year round solution to carcass disposal. No on-farm provisions is presented for this period of the year. The control of leachates would require some attention in order to prevent contamination.

When does Hog Odour Stink?

Posted in: Environment by admin on | No Comments

The changes in the swine industry are presented as the number of swine producers decrease and the number of swine produced tend to increase. The production has also developed in area where few pigs were produced before such as North Carolina. As those changes happen enormous efforts have been made to understand the technical aspects of the production but no to little attention has been given to the understanding of how people and rural communities relate to those changes. Little effort has been given into understanding how odour objections relate to social factors, what is the nature of odour complaints from the perspective of the people complaining. In the expansion of the swine industry, in some case core social values of good neighboring are being violated: honesty, respect, reciprocity and sharing an identity. The common denominator of the resistance organizations in many states is a view that the rights to enjoy family and property have been violated and they have little recourse against it.

This brings a good view of some of the social factors under the opposition to swine production expansion.

 
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