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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:
Ground Source Heat Pumps
Posted in: Production by admin on January 1, 2006 | No Comments
Ground source heat pump technology has been in existence for over 20 years. It harnesses the stable temperatures of the earth to provide a renewable source of heat and cooling throughout the year at substantially lower life cycle costs than conventional building heating and cooling systems. This technology offers reliable means of reducing operating and maintenance costs as well as reducing greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global warming. The decision to ultimately install a ground source heat pump will depend on site conditions, local energy costs, energy loads, and the type of application, the availability of qualified professionals, and the commitment of the user. No system is perfect, however with proper research, users should be able to make an informed decision on whether a GSHP system will meet their application needs.
Show Me the Money—Optimizing Production
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As with other industries, pork producers have looked to improve their performance with improvements in quality, but quality has different meanings for different people in different areas. Such differences in the interpretation of quality allude to the challenges of system optimization. Priorities differ among different segments of production and different functions within an operation. Some objectives may be easier to balance than others, and with an imperfect system, is it better to focus on least cost or strive for most profit? In the absence of a universal definition of quality throughout a system, how can system-wide optimization be achieved? A true or full optimization is a worthwhile goal and yet virtually impossible under current circumstances. We are limited by the measurements that we can and do make of swine production. We must identify the full range of the challenge and then choose those factors that are most likely to affect the outcome. This can be done subjectively, but is often limited, in large enterprises, by the lack of knowledge of the full system. Moreover, nonlinear relationships between inputs and outputs are rarely assessed correctly if left as a subjective concern. The concept of Quality Management has evolved over the last several decades. The core principles of Quality Management, as adopted by the International Organization of Standards are customer focus, leadership, involvement of people, process approach, system approach to management, continual improvement, factual approach to decision making, and mutually beneficial supplier relationships. There have also been three general assaults on quality management in swine farming over the last number of years. They include, expansion of size and localization of responsibility, lack of measurement for factual assessment of quality, and a lack of management accounting. There’s a general reluctance to admit to the high level of complexity of pig production. There are very few manufacturing processes that involve such a broad range of inputs with variable quality and interactions with outcomes. Given this high level of complexity, the swine industry is particularly reluctant to invest in production monitoring methods, as well as analytic protocols. Optimization of production processes requires adequate investment in records, people and methodological skills. When such resources are available, the opportunities for improvement in swine production rise to a new threshold. There is a technique in quality management called the “Five Why’s”. When there is a problem, there should be not only one why but a set of at least five why’s linking the system together. These sequences are difficult to do but highly advantageous when solved. For instance pigs die in the nursery because of H. parasuis. They die of the disease because they were weaned too light. They were too light because they were too young. They were too young because too many sows farrowed. Too many sows farrowed because there were an excess number of sows rebred with a subsequent high farrowing rate. These were returns because of seasonal infertility. Seasonal infertility occurred because of a low farrowing rate caused, at least in part, by single matings during the summer. And so we can go on. Optimization of the system is recognizing the links and emphasizing them as common responsibilities. It is something that we are starting to do, but the opportunities are endless.
20 Years of Progress
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Tweny years of Checkoff-funded programs have made their mark on the pork industry, from the launch of the innovative Pork. The other White Meat campaign to the successful eradication of speudorabies. Turn to pages 8 through 38 for an overview of some of the programs made possible by the Pork Checkoff and the impact they have made
The Take Care Program and Responsible Use of Antibiotics
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The Take Care—Use Antibiotics Responsibly program is an industry initiative to address antibiotic use in pork production. The program has the potential to impact the ways in which antibiotics are used in US pork production. Success of the program will be dependent on the effectiveness of delivery channels of the program to the approximately 70,000 pork producers in the US. Because the program is not a certification or assessment program it will be hard to assess industry compliance with the principles and guidelines. The program does, however, demonstrate the industry’s good faith effort to address concerns about antibiotic use. Information about the program has been delivered to public health and regulatory audiences to emphasize the industry’s efforts. The program has been endorsed by producers supplying over 45% of the hogs marketed in the United States as well as by the American Association of Swine Veterinarians.
Breeding Room: Body Condition, Feeding and Heat Detection
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Genetic selection in the past has maximized lean growth, which is a problem for reproduction. Strict nutritional programs must be followed in order to ensure proper body conditioning of the sow to maintain a quality reproductive life. Gestation feeding must be done to have the best possible body condition for farrowing, lactation, weaning, and return to estrus (all of which will be reduced by a too-fat sow). Sows that are too skinny will be more susceptible to injury. Each sow should be fed to individual requirements (a body score of 3 should be target). Modern feeders typically allow for examination and adjustment of each sows daily feed amount. Conditioning should be done at breeding, 30, 50, and 80 days of pregnancy. Feed increase in the 3rd trimester should be avoided unless absolutely necessary for the sow. An efficient breeding barn requires an understanding of the pigs’ estrus cycle, signs of pro-estrus, signs of heat, and heat detection. A cycle lasts from heat to heat (~ 21 days) and the sow can only be bred during heat. During the time before heat (pro-estrus) the vulva gets red and swollen and animal riding may occur. There are many signs of heat, but the most prominent is the standing heat reflex, where the sow permits breeding. Heat checking should be done nose to nose so the boar can stimulate the sow with sound and pheromones. Boars should be housed away from the sows in order to avoid the sows getting used to them and avoid an unknown refractory period.
Opportunities in Utilizing Crystalline Amino Acids in Swine
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Amino acid nutrition of monogastrics has been investigated using individual amino acids since the discovery of threonine by W. C. Rose in 1935. With commercial availability of synthetic methionine and crystalline lysine in the early 1960s, and because these two amino acids are typically first limiting in poultry and swine, there has been a plethora of research estimating their required needs. As additional crystalline amino acids became commercially available, tryptophan and threonine, and isoleucine and valine, research on their estimated requirements and ratios relative to lysine has expanded our understanding on how to formulate diets to minimize amino acid excesses while meeting the nutritional needs of the animal. Because of the increased availability of crystalline amino acids and the continual need to improve the utilization of nutrients to reduce the impact of livestock production on the environment, there is always a need to more fully understand amino acid nutrition of non-ruminants. In addition, characterization of ingredients or diets (total, apparent, standardized, or true, etc.), and method of data analysis, still present a difficult task of summarizing published data into a concise data set for ultimate use in feed formulation. Lastly, determination of nutrient requirement estimates in older or heavier animals is costly and inherently variable such that substantial progress in refining their nutrient needs has been difficult. However, progress in understanding nutrient needs of these animals is vitally important since consumption of feed is greatest, and conversion efficiency into edible product is lowest, at these heavier weights.
Weaning pig performance and faecal microbiota with and without in-feed addition of rare earth elements
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Two 6-week feeding trials were conducted on a total of 112 newly weaned piglets to examine the recently reported growth promoting effects of dietary rare earth elements (REE) in European pig production. Rare earth element-diets were supplemented with a REE-citrate premix of lanthanum and the light lanthanoides cerium, praseodymium and neodymium at 200 mg/kg for 6 weeks after weaning. Overall for both trials, growth performance of REE-citrate and control fed piglets did not differ significantly (p > 0.05). An early enhancive tendency for REE-citrate in trial 1 (feed conversion ratio, FCR )3%, p ¼ 0.15) proved irreproducible in trial 2. In the late period of trial 1, in-feed addition of REE-citrate significantly impaired piglet performance (FCR + 8%, p ¼ 0.01). A cultivation-independent molecular approach, polymerase chain reaction-denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis was further applied to assess REE induced alterations in the predominant faecal microbiota from weaning pigs. Calculation of various ecological characteristics does not indicate (p > 0.05) an often discussed selective effect on local microbial composition of dietary REE.
Recent Developments in Net Energy Research for Swine
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The cost of feed is the most important cost of pig meat production (~60%) and the energy component represents the greatest proportion of the feed. Therefore, it is important to estimate precisely the energy value of feeds, either for least-cost formulation purposes or for adapting feed supply to energy requirements of animals. In addition, energy supply has an important impact on performance of animals. Evaluation of energy content of pig feeds is firstly and most commonly based on their Digestible Energy (DE) or Metabolizable Energy (ME) contents. However, the closest estimate of the “true” energy value of a feed should be its Net Energy (NE) content, which takes into account differences in metabolic utilization of ME between nutrients. In addition, NE is the only system in which energy requirements and diet energy values are expressed on a same basis, which should theoretically be independent of the feed characteristics. The objectives of this paper is to present the available energy systems for pig feeds with emphasis given to NE systems and to evaluate their ability for predicting pig performance. Energy value of pig feeds can be measured according to different criteria (DE, ME or NE). The most advanced and practically applicable energy evaluation system appears to be the NE system proposed by Noblet et al. (1994) for which energy values of most ingredients used in pig diets are available (Sauvant et al., 2004). In addition, these authors have proposed energy values that are different for growing and adult pigs. This system has been widely used in Europe and internationally in many major feed companies. The relative energy density or the hierarchy between ingredients depends on the energy system with considerable variations between ingredients or compound feeds when either fat or crude protein contents deviate from values in standard diets. Even if it has not been considered in detail in this review, the change from DE or ME systems to a NE system is usually associated with a shift in diet composition with lower crude protein contents and slightly higher fat levels. From that point of view, formulating according to a NE concept produces more environmentally friendly diets. Significant improvements in prediction of energy value of pig feeds will come from an improved knowledge of energy and nutrients digestibility, which depends on chemical characteristics of the feed, (bio)technological treatments and animal factors. Unfortunately, current information is insufficient to take this systematically into consideration and it should be a promising area for future research. Finally, for least cost formulation purposes, reliable (i.e., related to animal performance) nutritional values must be used. It is then highly suggested to combine efficient protein – digestible amino acids – and energy – net energy – systems. Under such circumstances, the feed cost of production should be minimized.