Measurements to Predict Swine DE Content of Barley

Posted in: Prairie Swine Centre by admin on January 1, 1999 | No Comments

Incidence of belly nosing in segregated early weaning pigs

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Segregated early weaning (SEW) was initially employed as a means of eradicating disease in swine operations. However, little is known about how management factors affect the incidence of belly nosing and belly sucking in early weaned pigs. A study was designed to investigate the effects of line difference, diet from and pen enrichment of the incidence of these behaviours in piglets weaned at seven days of age. Results indicate that line difference affects the incidence of nosing and sucking behaviours in early weaned pigs.

Performance and Carcass Quality of Growing-Finishing Pigs Submitted to Reduced Nocturnal Temperatures

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An oil sprinkling system for dust control in pig buildings

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Pork producers are continuously exposed to high levels of dust. Over the past ten years, studies have been done in attempt to develop a method of reducing these high dust levels. Until now, sprinkling of oil appeared to be the most promising technique, reducing dust levels by 50-80% when manually applied. However, because of the intensive labour requirements for manual application, the industry has not adopted oil application in barns. This study attempted to develop an automatic oil sprinkling system using currently recommended application rates. The developed system caused a 79% reduction in dust levels compared to the control room. These results replicated previous dust reduction data done with manual application. In terms of cost of application, this system would cost < $1.00/pig sold. Future projects will look at optimizing oil usage as well as long term effects of oil sprinkling.

PSC Elstow Feed Grain Utilization

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Performance and carcass quality of growing-finishing pigs submitted to reduced nocturnal temperature

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Summer months bring elevated temperatures, which can reduce pig growth rate by decreasing feed intake. It has been suggested that a reduced temperature setpoint during summer months could sustain pig performance by perhaps modifying pig eating behavior and stimulating the average daily feed intake. Both a pilot study and a large scale experiment were conducted to evaluate the impact of a reduced nocturnal temperature strategy on the performance and carcass quality of growing-finishing pigs over summer months. The reduced temperature setpoint was set 6A?A?C lower than typical commercial barn temperature setpoints. The rooms with reduced temperature setpoints resulted in a lowered nocturnal room temperature, 1.6A?A?C cooler at night, but no effect on daytime room temperature. The average daily temperature fluctuation in the reduced nocturnal temperature (RNT) rooms was increased by 2.1A?A?C. In the large scale trial, feed intake and ADG was higher than in the control rooms. These results were not found to be statistically significant; however, reducing temperature setpoint could provide a net return of 0.80 CAN$/pig sold raised during summer months in Saskatchewan.

Manure Management

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Strategies to alter nutrient excretion

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Nutrient management is becoming increasingly important for the swine industry worldwide. However, the situation on the Canadian Prairies cannot be compared tot eh situation in The Netherlands or North Carolina. That said, sustained attention in the media to nutrient management problems elsewhere supports a proactive approach to study strategies to alter nutrient excretion patterns, and perhaps gain economically in the process. Projects are underway to study nutritional strategies to alter excretion patterns of nitrogen and phosphorus, the two most problematic nutrients in manure.

Savaging in Gilts and Sows

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Humidity control strategies for winter conditions

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Most control systems are temperature controlled, relying on constant minimum ventilation rate (MVR). A survey on the different conventional control systems used was conducted. Less than half of those surveyed used the recommended MVR settings. Under or overestimating MVR settings can negatively affect relative humidity (RH) and contaminant concentrations in the barn. A system that could automatically adjust ventilation according to room humidity and improve the overall conditions in the building and optimize energy requirements would be very useful. A computer model was developed to evaluate the benefits of temperature and humidity control (THC) systems that take into account the room RH over a more conventional temperature control (TC) system. Simulations comparing heating and ventilation systems were based on average temperature, energy demand and respective fluctuations of humidity and CO2 concentrations. Overall, the strategy selected as being optimum was THC with proportional control, a 75% RH set point and a proportional band of 5%.