Alternative Systems for Meat Chickens and Turkeys

Posted in: Pork Insight Articles, Research Watch by admin on November 8, 2011 | No Comments

This article discusses a paper written about alternative chicken housing methods. Free range and organic systems are seen to provide good environmental and living conditions to chickens, but also have some potential negitive impacts towards health and welfare. Breed suitability should be the main consideration for choosing animals for specific housing methods.

Helping new cattle adjust to the feedlot

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This article discusses Carter King’s ideas for making the lives of feedlot cattle more comfortable. He feels that by taking a more gentle approach when dealing with cattle, stress levels and pen behaviour can be improved. The article stresses that all people working with the cattle must take a gentle approach to help new cows adjust to the feedlot. The article also discusses the challenges faced when trying to medicate and feed a herd of cattle with specific nutritional requirements.

Watch Bedding Levels In Pig Transport

Posted in: Pork Insight Articles, Research Watch by admin on November 7, 2011 | No Comments

USDA inspectors require bedding to be present in hog trailers. To cover a standard trailer with 1 inch of bedding 6 bails are required. In warm weather to much bedding can be detrimental to the pigs in transit and it was found that no more than 3 bails is required to keep dead on arrival rates down. In winter it was found that to much bedding would freeze after the first load of pigs and become dangerous to the next loads of pigs causing injury and death rates to increase.

Does a high water sulphur level increase odour and gaseous emissions?

Posted in: Pork Insight Articles, Prairie Swine Centre by admin on November 4, 2011 | No Comments

A recently published paper by Bernardo Predicala and John Patience of the Prairie Swine Centre, describes a study that was conducted to determine if high levels of sulphate in the drinking water results in an increase in odour and gaseous emissions from the barn or affects other swine manure properties.

Introduction

Sulphur intake is of particular concern because out of the 10 most odorous components of swine odour identified so far, six were found to contain sulphur. These odour components are produced mainly from anaerobic breakdown of unutilized nutrients excreted by pigs into the manure.

Drinking water can contribute significantly to sulphur intake of pigs. One major source is the sulphate content in water supplies, which has been found to exceed 1600 mg/L in certain geographic areas. Studies showed that pigs offered water with increased sulphate levels (up to 1800 mg/L) had increased prevalence of non-pathogenic diarrhea, although growth performance was rarely impaired. However, no one has assessed the impact of poor water quality on air emissions and swine manure properties.

The overall goal of this study was to determine the effect of varying levels of sulphur in drinking water on odour and gaseous emissions and on manure nutrient composition. Pig growth performance was also measured. Four water treatments were compared, normal water, with a low sulphate content and water with 600, 1200 and 1800 milligrams per litre of sulphate. The waters containing elevated sulphate were formulated to reflect the composition of water observed on commercial farms experiencing high mineral levels in their drinking water.

The 2-ft deep manure pits in the rooms used for the trial were emptied every two weeks. To evaluate the effect of the treatments on manure properties and gaseous emissions from manure under long-term storage, manure samples were collected from each room just before emptying the pits. The manure sample was transferred into a 205L (45 gallon) barrel, one for each room, and stored for an additional five weeks to simulate longer-term manure storage.

Gas levels spike when pits pulled

The levels of ammonia (NH₃) and carbon dioxide (CO₂) in each room were monitored continuously but were not markedly different between the different treatments.  There was no statistically significant impact of the sulphate levels in the water on the concentrations and emissions of these gases from the treatment rooms.

Monitoring of hydrogen sulphide (H₂S) levels in each room showed that they were extremely low, less than one part per million, which was less than the minimum that the detection equipment could measure. However, when the manure pit-plug was pulled to clear the manure from the pits, H₂S levels increased during the approximately 15-min period in which the manure slurry was flowing out of the pit. A typical plot of the H₂S levels during the plug-pulling day is shown in Figure 1; a similar pattern was observed in all of the rooms.

The peak H₂S levels in the treatment rooms that received high-sulphate water (1200 and 1800 ppm) tended to be higher than in the low-sulphate rooms (Control and 600 ppm). However, these spikes occurred for only a short period of time and the high levels (288 and 134 ppm H₂S for 1200 and 1800 ppm sulphate respectively) were dissipated to less than 10 ppm in less than 10 minutes. Nevertheless, it is possible that high-sulphate levels in drinking water could contribute to the generation of high H₂S levels during manure clearing operations. If not conducted properly, this could potentially lead to exposure of barn workers and pigs to elevated H₂S levels.

Odour and emissions not affected

Odour concentration and emissions were not affected by the water treatment and high sulphate levels did not lead to an increase in the measurements of these parameters.

Analysis of manure samples collected from the manure pit of each room and from the barrels used to simulate longer-term manure storage showed no significant effect of water treatment on total nitrogen, ammonia-N, total solids or phosphorus in the room manure samples, but there were significant effects on potassium and sulphur levels. As would be expected, the manure sulphur level increased as water sulphate level increased.

Interestingly, comparison of nutrient levels in the barrel manure samples showed significant differences between treatments for all nutrients tested. Manure samples from the treatment rooms with sulphate added to the drinking water tended to have about 10% higher nutrient levels relative to the control samples (excluding S and Na which had 50% more than the control due to the treatment). Thus, it would appear that high-sulphate drinking water may result in better retention of nutrients in stored manure.

Pig performance was not adversely affected by high levels of sulphate in the pig’s drinking water. During the study, no notable incidence of scouring or diarrhea was observed. The pigs’ average daily gain ranged between 0.86 to 1.12 kg/day but was not different between treatments.

Conclusions

Elevated levels of sulphate in the drinking water had no adverse impact on manure nutrient composition, odour and gas (NH₃ and CO₂) emissions or on the performance of grower-finisher pigs. Thus, water containing up to 1600 to 1800 ppm sulphate can be used for growing and finishing pigs with no concern for animal performance or for odour or gas emissions from the barn. However, we suggest one caution.  When using high-sulphate drinking water, the potential exists for higher H₂S spikes during manure handling operations. Appropriate measures should be taken to protect animal and worker health and safety. While water quality may impact other aspects of barn siting, growout pig performance and odour and gas emissions should not be a concern.

Photo caption:  Figure 1: Typical H₂S levels monitored in a treatment room, showing no detectable values throughout most of the day, except during the plug-pulling event (indicated by the spike in H₂S levels)

Nutrition affects immunity in poultry

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This article summarizes three speakers who spoke about immunity and nutrition at the International Poultry Scientific Forum. The first speaker talked about how immunity, nutrition and stress are interconnected when it comes to the welfare of a chicken.  The second speaker discussed how a chicken’s immune system develops over it’s life and the potential benefits of vaccination. The third speaker talked about nutrition-disease interactions regarding gut health in chickens.

Addressing the Challenges of Alternative Housing Systems for Poultry

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A new directive in the EU has forced all poultry producers to switch from battery cages to furnished cages. Furnished cages (FCs)  are bigger and have perches and other amenities to improve hen performance and welfare. FC groups are getting bigger, up to 60 hens,  as more producers are forced to make the switch and try to remain competitive. Well managed large groups have preformed well. FCs are said to have 8% higher production costs compared to battery cages.

Calving pens- Individual vs. Group

Posted in: Pork Insight Articles, Research Watch by admin on November 2, 2011 | No Comments

This article discusses the pros and cons of different calving pens. Different solutions are required for different farm types including large or small farms, where a feeder or feild is located, and how attentive employees can be to the herd.

Impact of Debt on Ontario Swine Farms

Posted in: Ontario Pork, Pork Insight Articles by admin on November 1, 2011 | No Comments

Canadian farmers carry a lot of debt, total farm debt for all Canadian farms was 66.4 billion in 2010. Pork producers make up about 6% of this debt, with each farms average debt being $850 435. Hog producers faced difficult financial times from 2006-201o where they experienced sustained losses which increased their debt loads. Fortunately interest rates have remained low for the same period helping farmers avoid paying more interest. But now with speculation of interest rates rising, farms carrying large debt loads could find themselves once again in financial trouble. This paper attempts to help Ontario pork producers understand how they compare to other producers in different regions and of other commodities in terms of debt levels and their ability to meet financial repayments should interest rates rise from their current historically low levels. Some objectives of this paper are to: 1) Calculate Ontario industry averages for debt‐related financial ratios using a variety of data sources. 2) Calculate financial ratios for pig producers in other provinces and the U.S. 3) Identify differences, if any, in farm debt repayment ability for the various production stages or for different farm sizes. 4) Develop a tool that producers and industry partners can use to input individual farm data that allows for comparison to the industry averages. Using multiple data sources the authors were able to determine that Ontario hog farms have higher debt to asset ratios than those of Manitoba and the US but still lower than farms in Quebec. Ontario pork farsm have more long term structured debt than other farm types in Ontario. Debt to total revenues averaged 1.25 during the period of 2007-2009 which is higher than all other Ontario farm types except dairy. Debt to equity ratios, % equity positions, and current ratios all worsened in 2009 compared to the 2003 to 2008 levels.Return on assets was in the 3‐7% range from 2003 to 2008 but dropped to slightly above 0% in 2009. The data revealed many other statistics about how debt loads increased from 2006. Some summaries that the authors came up with include: Ontario swine operations have a total debt and interest expense of $1.1 billion. Larger farmers carried more debt, but debt was not tied to profit. On an aggregate industry level, debt levels and debt servicing requirements on average do not appear to be the major determining factor in profitability. For farms of any gross revenue size or production type it is important to not extend their debt servicing capacity beyond levels that are sustainable.

Welfare and modern veal production

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This article discusses some of the challenges faced in veal production. Veal production uses a lot of whey protein and therefore a price change in whey causes veal production costs to change as well. In response to consumer demand veal production is shifting to group housing systems despite lacking scientific evidence that group housing improves animal welfare. ‘Bob’ dairy calves, which have a high chance of testing positive for antibiotic residue, are not, but often considered veal calves. The veal industry suffers from reports of animals testing positive for antibiotic residue simply from name confusion.  

Economic and Welfare Impact of Lameness in Sows in England

Posted in: Pork Insight Articles, Research Watch by admin on October 28, 2011 | No Comments

In England about 4% of sows showed some sign of lameness. This was discovered to cost between £19 to £266, depending on if the sow was treated or euthanized. It was found when measures were taken to offset lameness, the results were significant. Higher producing sows, and having more sows in the same pen, were situations that saw an increase in lame sows.