Use of Electrolytes to Encourage Early Feed Consumption

Posted in: Production by admin on January 1, 2006 | No Comments

Early-weaned piglets lose an average of 6.9 ± 2.4 % of their body weight in the weaning process. They lose weight for an average of 2.4 ± 1.2 days and regain weaning weight at 3.7 ± 0.98 days. This growth check is a welfare concern as, during this period, piglets are not consuming enough feed and water to meet their physiological needs. It is also a high-risk period for disease, especially diarrhea, and a period of economic loss. Diarrhea, at the time of weaning, can add to the risk of dehydration if piglets are not consuming adequate amounts of water. Up to the point of weaning, young piglets have gained most of their fluid and nourishment through nursing. After weaning, piglets have to learn to consume water and dry feed separately. This may be difficult for some piglets to learn and inadequate water consumption can lead to dehydration. Earlier work has shown that piglets weaned into pens with water and feed show an increase in hematocrit indicative of failure to maintain adequate water consumption. In fact piglets weaned into pens with water and piglets transported without water show similar increases in hematocrit. Adequate water consumption is also necessary to encourage feed consumption. Water consumption by early-weaned piglets is therefore important for early recovery. In this research project we asked the question: If we added something which tasted good (electrolyte solution) to the water would we increase water consumption in the critical 3 day growth check period post weaning? Seventy-two piglets were weaned at 17±1 day of age. Half of this group was placed in simulated transport for 24 h and the other half were placed straight into pens with feed and water. A medicated diet was supplied in standard feeders. Water was supplied through standard water nipples and was gravity fed from containers that could be weighed to measure water consumption. These containers were filled with tap water or water containing an electrolyte solution for 3 days after entry into the pens. On the 4th day all pens received tap water only. The study confirmed that the use of electrolytes in water may help piglets to retain weight and fluid status during the first week after weaning. However, more work is needed to determine the dose and number of days which will be needed to encourage fluid consumption but which will also encourage feed consumption. Spill is also a problem that will need to be addressed.

Factors affecting longevity in maternal Duroc swine lines

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Alberta Pork chair urges greater collaboration throughout pork industry

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The Alberta pork industry will need to work more cooperatively with each other and
think more creatively if it is to have a fighting chance against the challenges it faces
today and in the future, says the chairman of Alberta Pork, the organization which
represents the province’s pork producers.
In a presentation at Alberta Pork’s Annual General Meeting (AGM), Herman Simons
urged all pork industry participants to buy into the Revitalization Strategy developed by
the industry and its partners this year and, in many cases, think beyond it. “We have to
come to grips with the idea that good environmental and animal welfare practices are
baseline expectations of today’s consumers. The next step is differentiating ourselves in a
market built on those expectations,” he says.
Key to this will be the entire industry’s ability to work together toward a common goal of
prosperity.

Limited Cross-Fostering Shows Results

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As the health challenges facing the swine industry continue to evolve and change, the management practices needed to support production must also change. In a paper presented at the London Swine Conference, Dr. Monte McCaw outlined the limited cross fostering procedures that are showing positive results. The intent of these procedures is to confine health problems to as small a group as possible and move them through the production system.Point #1 – Don’t cross foster piglets after 24 hours of age. You would move only the minimum number of piglets to load functional teats, and not one pig more. Knowing when to stop and start cross fostering is a critical component here. For instance, you would no longer cross foster to create litters of uniform size or sex. When you have extra medium or large pigs that must be moved, match them by size and milking ability of the receiving sows and litter. You should ensure that smallest piglets are given the lowest priority for functional teat assignment. They are best left on their birth sow or moved as extras when there are more piglets than available teats. The highlight of this whole section comes down to maximizing the number of piglets left on their birth mother, cross fostering only once within 24 hours of birth, and if faced with surplus pigs maximizing the number of pigs on colostrum mothers. Point #2 – in Dr. McCaw’s presentation, the point was made to not move piglets between rooms. It is imperative to follow strict all in, all out production practices. Moving pigs between rooms presents far too many threats to all animals involved to any longer consider it a useful or appropriate procedure. Thinking along other lines, the litter is now the all in, all out unit. We traditionally thought rooms, or even whole facilities, but this is now restricted to as small a unit as possible which is the litter.Point #3 – made by Dr. McCaw covered culling. He strongly recommended removing very sick, moribund or bad body condition pigs from the system. He recommended producers sell or eliminate piglets at weaning that are too light to survive in the nursery and have poor body condition. If you have to treat piglets and they don’t get better quickly after treatment, they should also be removed immediately from your production system. Other piglets that show symptoms of very thin, starved out, lameness, light body weight, long hair or chronic illness should be removed from the production system as they appear. It is important to remember a piglet held back from weaning takes a teat away from a younger potentially healthier pig. In the area of Nursery Management the priorities according to Dr. McCaw included:• Carefully sorting piglets into pens according to size. Equals are equal and less equal will suffer accordingly. Care should be taken to place the smallest piglets in the part of the room that is most free of drafts and remains warm enough to support them. Special efforts in feeding must be made. He recommends hand feeding four times daily for at least five days. When deciding to switch rations the decision should be based on the weight of the pigs in the pen, not the weight of the pigs in the room. Supplemental heat (lamps) and plastic mats must be used if required, and are most often required. A drinker that runs water constantly should be available at a level that all pigs can reach for the first 24 hours after weaning. • Gilt and sow management are major factors in determining the number of piglets weaned in a room. You cannot reasonably expect to wean more quality pigs than there are functional teats in a farrowing room. To achieve high functional teat scores requires careful gilt selection and refined records of functional teat numbers in previous lactations.Now to expand on this material and put some numbers on it, we can go to a talk delivered November 30, 2005 at the Shakespeare production seminar by Dr. Sue Burlatshenko. She applied some nursery math in her presentation at a level that most of us can understand. Assume the death rate in pigs weaned at less that 3.8 kg is 45%. Assume the death rate of pigs between 3.8 and 5 kg is 12%, and assure the opportunity cost (had the pig lived) of a dead or live weight pig is $37. So every pig less than 3.8 kg entering the nursery has an opportunity cost of 45% of $37. = $16.65. Every pig between 3.8 and 5 kg has an opportunity cost of 12% times $37 equals $4.44, therefore, $16.65 – $4.44 = $12.21 that can be used to address potential treatment methods for these pigs.The message from these two papers is that management must pay extreme attention to detail and be carried out correctly in all instances to achieve the best levels of healthy weaner pigs, when faced with serious disease challenges.

Arthritis or OCD – Identification and Prevention

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Physical lameness in swine still exists despite the decades of improvements in genetic, nutrition, disease, and housing management practices. Osteochondrosis (OC) is the most prevalent cause of structural lameness in growing swine and can progress to osteochondrosis dissecans (OCD) and osteoarthritis (OA). It is still unknown what exactly causes these diseases and are classified as idiopathic (disease of unknown cause or origin). Genetics could potentially contribute to these diseases. Work is being done to find a genetic basis for OC and related disorders. A single gene mutation is unlikely to explain all the factors that lead to OA disorders (it is most likely multiple gene mutations). Environmental factors thought to be important in modulation of gene expression include nutrition, disease, and housing. There is current work being done on investigating nutritional factors, and there is no evidence that OC results from infectious organisms. Different housing systems have not had any effect on the occurrence of OC. Management recommendations include selecting for extremes in growth potential, keeping pigs fit by feeding complete diets to meet all requirements, and allow adequate stocking rates.

Heterogeneous Production Efficiency of Specialized Swine Producers

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How Does Weaning Weight Influence the Growth Check in Early Weaned Piglets?

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Weaning can be a difficult time for early-weaned piglets. During the first 3 to 4 days post weaning they lose weight and may not consume enough water to meet their physiological needs. This is not surprising as weaning is an abrupt change for piglets. Up to weaning piglets have lived with the sow and their littermates and acquired their nourishment through nursing. Following weaning, piglets must learn to drink from a nipple drinker, eat a solid diet and feed individually, without the benefit of nursing grunts to signal feeding times. The result of this is a growth check, which is a welfare and economic concern. In this research project we asked the question: How does weaning weight affect the piglet’s ability to negotiate the growth check? The result of this experiment showed that the heavier piglets from a litter lost more weight over a longer period and had lower percentage ADG than their lighter littermates. These heavier piglets may have more difficulty in the immediate post-weaning period because they have less experience with creep feed and water. Increased fighting among these heavier piglets probably exacerbates this. Producers may want to pay more attention to these larger piglets as they may look better on casual inspection but may actually be at more risk during the first week post weaning.

Opportunities For Improving Reproductive Management And Efficiency Of The Swine Breeding Herd With Artificial Insemination

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Artificial insemination (AI) was first developed for use in swine in the late 1960’s. Since that
time, advancements have led to a slow but gradual increase in the use of this technology.
This article describes the current status of swine AI, its benefits and applications, and its
relationship to current reproductive performance in the USA.

Feeding time and feeding rate and its relationship with feed intake, feed efficiency, growth rate, and rate of fat deposition in growing Duroc barrows

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The objectives of this study were to investigate trends based on daily measurements of feeding behavior traits in Duroc barrows during growth, and to investigate phenotypic correlations between feeding length and feeding rate, and feeding frequency, ADFI, G:F, growth rate, and rate of fat deposition. The data set of the current study was not sufficiently large for accurate estimation of heritabilities and genetic correlations. Knowledge on genetic parameters is needed in order to further discuss the possibility of incorporating feeding length and feeding rate in the
selection objectives. However, results of the current study indicate that, when sufficiently heritable, feeding length and feeding rate may be used to improve feed intake capacity in pigs during growth.

Breeding Room: Achieving a 95% Farrowing Rate

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Duane Dewhurst of Fast Genetics explains how bacterial contamination of semen (e.g. – feces) can reduce productivity in several ways, information you should know about your semen supplier, and guidelines used at Fast Genetics to maintain top quality semen production. Mike Tiede from Elite Stock Farms explains how they achieve a 95% farrowing rate. Proper training of staff is essential as well as letting them know where production stands and how to reach those targets. Sow body condition is important to monitor to ensure a long breeding life and good heat detection is key to their success. Artificial insemination should be done as hygienically as possible, and it should not be rushed or given too slowly. Proper training here is essential.