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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:
Designing the environment of the growing/finishing pig
Posted in: Prairie Swine Centre by admin on January 1, 1994 | No Comments
The grower/finisher phase represents the longest management period for market hogs. It is also the period of greatest feed consumption and greatest use of space. Often, when seeking to improve operations, this phase is overlooked. This paper discusses several aspects of grower/finisher facilities and how better knowledge of behaviour should improve the design and management of this phase of production. Areas to be discussed include considerations of the quantity and quality of space, social management of pigs and alternatives tot eh partially slatted confinement barn.
Using immunomodulation as a tool to increase reproductive efficiency
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Reproductive efficiency is of low heritability. In the past, attempts to improve reproductive efficiency have focused on crossbreeding. The turnover rate of breeding stock in western Canada is quite high with about 40% of the average herd made up of replacement gilts. Gilts tend to have smaller litter sizes, which has been correlated to a lower number of eggs released from ovary in gilts relative to sows. The Animal Biotechnology Group at the University of Saskatchewan is attempting to develop a performance enhancement vaccine, which will increase the number of piglets farrowed to a gilt to bring gilts up to the performance level of sows. Understanding the physiology of the reproductive cycle has allowed scientists to make predictions on how to influence ovulation rate by modifying the levels of each of the different hormones. With failed attempts in the past, investigators have been attempting new, more specific methods to manipulate the reproductive cycle. A performance enhancement vaccine uses immunomodulation to stimulate an animals immune system to improve its own productivity. The advantage of this method over administering hormones is its specificity and duration of activity. It is possible to precisely modulate a hormone. The same has been done in the past by giving hormones such as estrogen and testosterone. Consumer acceptance of hormone administration to meat animals is decreasing and immunomodulation should be more acceptable. Immunomodulation leaves no residues following treatment since the antibodies used are completely broken down into amino acids and reused by the animal. The Animal Biotechnology Group is working with the Prairie Swine Centre to study and develop performance enhancing vaccines.
Phase and split-sex feeding of growing-finishing pigs
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Feed costs are the single most important cost factor in commercial pork production; in growing-finishing pigs feed cost may be as much as 70% of total production cost. An important means to reduce feed cost is to more closely meet the nutrient requirements of the growing-finishing pig at the various stages of production. This can be achieved by feeding the barrows and gilts separately (split-sex feeding) and by reducing the levels of expensive nutrients in the diet as pigs grow heavier (phase-feeding). A study was conducted to evaluate a systematic approach to developing a 3-phase and split-sex feeding program for PSCI pigs using a total of three diets.
Phase and split-sex feeding can be complicated by the challenge of providing numerous diets to a single barn or room. This problem was partly overcome in the current trial by using only three diets and strategically selective them for each sex based on body weight. In this trial, substantial improvements in gross margin were demonstrated through the combined effect of phase and split-sex feeding with minor effects on animal performance and carcass value.
Effect of restricting energy intake in growing-finishing pigs
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Growing-finishing pigs with average lean growth potentials generally consume more energy than what is required for body maintenance functions and to support maximum lean tissue growth rates. These pigs deposit more body fat than what is considered the minimum amount of (essential) body fat. As a result, carcass value, and sometimes feed efficiency, is reduced at high levels of feed intake. Carcass value, and possibly feed efficiency, can be improved when energy intake is restricted, then variation in feed intake and growth rates between pigs within pens may change. Under commercial conditions, this variation in performance should be considered. For example, an increase in variation in growth rates generally results in a reduction in the number of pigs produced within a production unit. Throughput within a facility is not determined by the average days to market but by the days to market of the last pig from the original group that leaves the facility.
The objective of the current studies were to determine the effect of energy intake on performance and carcass value in growing-finishing pigs and to determine the effect of feed intake restriction on variation in performance of group housed growing-finishing pigs.
The results of these trials indicate restricted feeding can improve carcass lean yield in pigs with average lean growth potential. However, caution is advised, as severe restrictions in feed intake were needed to demonstrate improvements in carcass value. The accompanying increased feed costs per tonne (to indicate that, for most pig genotypes, restricted feeding provides limited financial value to the producer. The current study suggests that there is no effect of degree of energy restriction on variation in animal performance.
Efficiency of feed utilization and carcass quality of market pigs
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Barley is the grain base for pig production in Western Canada. Its successful use depends upon appropriate supplementation. Good barley contains only 90% of recommended digestible energy (DE) for growing-finishing pigs. Barley is highly variable in DE, protein and amino acid content, being affected by varietal, agronomic and climatic factors. High fibre content is associated with reduced DE contend (Perez et al., 1980; Just, 1982). Bell et al. (1983) reported that energy digestibility declined from 84 to 64% as the crude fibre content increased from 2.5 to 11.0%, equivalent to a hull increase from zero to 30%.
The partial or total substitution of high-energy grains such as wheat, corn or hulless barley results in increased levels of DE in pig diets but has not always resulted in improved pig performance (Hollis and Palmer, 1971; Kromann et al., 1976). Barley was equal to wheat when fed at the same lysine: DE ratio (Walker, 1989).
The choice of protein supplement may also affect DE level in the diet. Canola meal and soybean meal, the most commonly used supplements,, differ in that soy contains more protein (44% vs 37%) and more DE/kg (3490 vs 3100).
Carcasses of pigs fed wheat have long been penalized in Canada because of excess fat but recent developments in pig breeding, housing and nutrition justify re-examination of the potential effects of various combinations of barley with high-energy grains and the interactions of these grain blends with the type of protein supplement used in terms of pig performance and carcass quality.
Performance in the new nursery
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In 1993 construction of the new nursery was completed at Prairie Swine Centre Inc. The three new rooms are to be operated on an all in – all out basis. Each room is controlled individually for environmental temperature and ventilation. Feeders for the nursery were designed at PSCI to maximize access of piglets to feed while minimizing feed wastage and the build up of stale feed in the feeders. A preliminary study was performed to ensure the performance level of the animals were satisfactory. Environmental temperature was set at 30A?A?C for the first 10 days and then gradually reduced to 28A?A?C during week four. Body weights of individual pigs and per pen feed usage was monitored at weekly intervals. No abnormalities in behavior or performance were noted. Performance was considered good compared to modern commercial nurseries.
Re-grouping strategies for pigs
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This study was conducted to determine if pigs with few littermates present in their new group performed poorly in comparison with litters with several littermates present. It is typically most cost effective to design a grower/finisher barn with permanent pens of the same size. However, with varying litter sizes, there is need for re-grouping once the pigs reach the grower/finisher stage. Once pigs are regrouped they are forced to form a new group identity and this transition may put some pigs at a disadvantage.
In this study litters of similar size were used. Each group was made up of 6 pigs from one litter (majority pigs) and two from another litter (minority pigs). Following regrouping pens were videotaped for 6 hours. These recordings were analyzed for aggression to determine if minority pigs were both dominant, both subordinate, or one being dominant and the other subordinate. It was found that weight gains of both majority and minority pigs did not differ during the study. Littermates did not cooperate to ensure that majority pigs were all dominant. Interestingly, minority pigs continued to associate with one another regardless of their position in the hierarchy. This information suggests that the new group identity does not obliterate the old identity. The study concluded that pigs in the minority are not at a disadvantage in terms of social status or growth.
Heating/ventilation control systems
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Mathematical models can be used to predict the outcomes of scenarios where there are many variables. The advantage of being able to model the outcome is that fewer experiments need to be conducted. For example, if the model can accurately predict the outcome of a change in one or more variables then it is only necessary to conduct a few tests to demonstrate the effectiveness of the model. This enables researchers to focus limited resources toward answering specific questions that either cannot be answered by the model or are predicted by the model to give a favourable response. A mathematical model is used in this study of ventilation control systems.
An important issue related to ventilation control systems is stability. a
Pre-slaughter diets affect meat quality
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The influence of oral acid or base load on the processing quality of hams from halothane positive (HP) pigs was examined. HP pigs received either ammonium chloride (8g/L), sodium bicarbonate (12.6g/L) or no additive (HP control) pigs were also slaughtered. Meat from HP animals showed pale, soft exudative properties and was of inferior processing quality to hams of normal quality from HN pigs. Ammonium chloride induced a metabolic acidosis, which further impaired ham quality. Hams from ammonium chloride treated HP hogs had greater thaw purge, less uniform slice appearance and were less juicy than comparable hams from control or bicarbonate treated HP hogs.
Growing-finishing pig performance monitoring system
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Pork producers are always looking for a new way to achieve better performance from their grower-finisher barn. In order to improve you must have a way of evaluating current performance and set a goal for future performance. It is the difficulty of evaluating current performance that has prevented us from achieving higher levels of production. The Growth Master, developed at the Prairie Swine Centre is a performance monitoring system that allows you to estimate the current level of animal and financial performance in the grower-finisher barn. With this easy to use computer system you can monitor using a technique of developing feed intake and growth curves. This produces a unique method of management for each farm while reflecting genetics, health, environment and nutrition of the herd. This program goes beyond identifying a