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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:
Where are the Dollars in Carbon Credits?
Posted in: Production by admin on January 1, 2004 | No Comments
Agriculture has a great potential to be the single largest source of greenhouse gas emissions reductions to help solve the global warming problem. Within the agricultural industry, the swine industry is uniquely positioned to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as well as recognize revenue for doing so. Due to global warming and the Kyoto Protocol, large industrial emitters will need to comply with emission reduction limits allocated to them within their industrial sector. These emitters will have the option to purchase reductions in order to offset their own emissions that exceed their allocation. A standardized process is required to allow a swine producer to take financial advantage of the Canadian Domestic Carbon Trading System, without the liabilities associated with marketing within the system.
Pigs in Transit – Handling and Transportation Guide
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Manitoba pork producers use many different ways to get their hogs to market – highway trailers, pickup or grain trucks, and fifth wheel trailers – even converted school buses. Regardless of the vehicle, all producers have one thing in common – a concern for the welfare of pigs in transit. Fortunately, along with this heightened awareness about animal care, pork producers also have the knowledge and technology to ensure pigs are handled and transported responsibly. Heat, cold, fear, bumpy roads, stops and starts, prodding and rough handling – these are just some of the things that can cause stress and exhaustion in livestock during handling and transportation. And that stress can severely reduce meat quality and price. Stress and exhaustion increase muscle temperature and deplete the supply of glycogen, the energy stored in muscle tissue that produces moist, pink, high quality pork. When animals are stressed before slaughter, glycogen levels drop. The result is Pale, Soft, and Exudative (PSE) pork, a product that doesn’t appeal to consumers. Extreme exhaustion during transit can result in Dark, Firm, Dry (DFD) meat, which has even lower consumer appeal and shorter shelf life. All pigs experience stress to some extent during loading and unloading. But stress can be minimized through calm, patient handling and an understanding of pig behaviour. By understanding the animals’ basic natural instincts during handling, farmers will be able to incorporate stress-reducing features into their buildings, transport vehicles and handling techniques. Pig hides are tender so protrusions or sharp edges along the path from the pen to the killing floor can inflict injury and create undue stress. Fright is another potential source of stress. Many things can spook pigs during the loading and unloading process including air blowing in their faces, dangling chains, loose ramps and boards, slippery floors, extremes of bright lights and darkness and loud noises. Good stockmanship can reduce pigs’ fear levels and improve production. Pigs naturally resent handlers getting into their personal space. Handlers should learn to think like a pig and use a pig’s natural “flight zone – the animal’s instinctive escape route – to help herd them. If a handler enters this circular zone, the pig will step away to maintain the circle’s size. Humane handling of livestock is a top industry priority. Many firms within the pork industry have established their own pig handling standards, many of which are even higher than those spelled out in federal and provincial legislation. Leading trucking firms, insurance companies, assembly yards, hog farms and abattoirs insist their employees and customers follow codes of ethics and practices. Some provide their staff with training courses in proper and responsible livestock treatment. The Animal Care Act is the basic law for all animal handling and care activities in Manitoba. Codes of practice are meaningless if they are considered just words on paper. The real code of conduct is our recognition of our responsibility as livestock producers for our animals’ health, comfort and well-being. If at any time you believe that animals are not being properly handled, please report this incident in confidence by calling the Animal Care Line at 204-945-8000.
Nutrition and Management Strategies to Optimize Performance of the Modern Sow and Boar
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The increase in pigs per sow per year in the past few years has not necessarily been due to more born alive piglets, but to improved production practices. The research and development of new nutritional strategies is a huge contributor to that. Due to current production strategies, many sows do not reach their genetic potential of 50 to 60 piglets per sow’s lifetime. In order for more farms to reach this potential there must be an increase in ovulation/fertilization rate and a decrease in embryo losses, both of which require knowledge of the factors that influence them. In order to do this, the different stages of sow and gilt development need to be analyzed.
For a gilt to have a good reproductive life, the gilt needs to be sufficiently mature and have adequate reserves of fat and lean tissue at first mating. The best way to achieve this is ad lib feeding during growth (“flushing”) to maximize ovulation rate, and then feed restriction for 21 days post-mating. The gilt diet should ensure growth of strong bones and proper vitamins and minerals to ensure a long breeding life. During gestation, sows should be fed to maintain body condition (score of 3.5) and fed high amounts during critical periods of fetal growth. During lactation the sow should be fed to wean 10 piglets while maintaining body condition. Good quality diets should be fed and plenty of water should be drank so the sow can yield an adequate amount of milk. For a prompt return to estrus after weaning sows should be kept on high amounts of lactation feed. Supplementing sow diets with minerals helps to improve litters and maintain sow bodily reserves.
To reduce piglet losses, ensure proper body condition to reduce piglet crushing. Supplementing sow diets with iron helps to increase iron reserves in piglets to reduce incidences of anemia. Sows nutrition should be maximized to upkeep milk yield for healthy immunity in the piglets.
Boars need only to be fed enough to not get too large. Nutrition should ensure maintenance, gain, and sexual development. They require adequate amino acids, vitamins and minerals similar to lactating sows, and certain fats for sperm development.
Trade Issues: The New Normal
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The increase in pork production in Canada has caused us to rely on the US market. In the past 5 years, pork production has grown by 5% all over the world (particularly China, Brazil, Mexico, and North America). Canada’s swine breeding herd has been growing and slowly catching up with the US breeding herd. International movement of pork has been growing 4 times faster than production itself. Japan is reducing production and increasing imports. There is even a lot of pig traffic between the US and Canada because the US needs to import in order to meet demand. In fact, the US even eats more Canadian pork than Canada eats Canadian pork. The US is worried about competition from the faster growing Canada and Brazil. Alternative worrisome factors in the US are disease (PRRS in particular) and high labour costs.
Pathophysiology of Salmonella typhimurium septicemia in swine
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The control of Salmonella in swine is vital for the respect of regulations, and to prevent meat contamination and transmission of antibiotics resistant strains to human by meat products. The meaning of this study was Salmonella infections in swine, particularly strains involved in septicemia. An experimental infection in order to determine the dosage causing typical profuse diarrhea and physical exhaustion has been performed. Carcasses of pigs having shown clinical signs of salmonellosis were significantly more often contaminated by Salmonella. Examination of plasmidic profiles revealed that invasive strains had small molecular weight plasmids associated with this invasive power. For many septicemic strains of Salmonella, incubation of those bacteria in albumin significantly reduced the phagocytosis response against them. Despite the generation of thousands of mutant strains of S. typhimurium, it was impossible to produce strains lacking the capacity to produce GAPDH surface proteins. Optimal laboratory conditions has been established for detecting the genes coding for the multi-resistance associated integron (nt), for resistance to flofenicol (flo), for an invasin (inv) and for the detection of the gene (spvC) already associated with virulence. It was demonstrated that multi-resistant strains of S. typhimurium associated with septicemia in swine are also associated with enteritis in human. Using identification of the GAPDH proteins present at the surface of Salmonella bacteria at all stages of infection, the Chaire de recherche en salubrité des viandes developed a serologic test for checking the animal contamination status. A vaccination protocol with microspheres that will allow reaching every tissue for adequate protection must now be developed.
Phytase plus reduced calcium, phosphorus may increase amino acid, energy digestibility
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Phytate is an anionic compound that is known for its antinutritional effects. The most researched phytate is phaytate phosphorus, which is largely unavailable to nonruminant animals. Researchers have shown that phytate negatively affects amino acid availability in feedstuffs, decreases the activity of digestive enzymes to bind to dietary protein and amino acids and to form calcium-phosphate-phytate complexes with carbohydrates. It’s also been suggested that calcium-phytate complexes with fatty acids in the gut lumen forms insoluble metallic soaps, thus lowering fat digestibility. Dietary phytase is widely used in swine feeding programs to reduce phosphorus excretion in the manure by improving the dietary phytate phosphorus bioavailability to the pig. Research results have been inconsistent as to the effect of phytase on improving protein, amino acid, dry matter and nitrogen digestibility. The mineral concentration of diets fed to nonruminants also affects nutrient availability. It’s been reported that the ileal digestibility of essential amino acids and nitrogen were increased when dietary non-phytate phosphorus concentration was decreased in diets for poults and swine. Swine researchers S.L. Johnston, S.B. Williams, L.L. Southern, T.D. Bidner, L.D. Bunting, J.O. Matthews and B.M. Olcott at Louisiana State University Agricultural Center conducted two experiments to determine whether the reduction of dietary calcium and phosphorus, the addition of phytase or the combination of these two treatments (for a total of four treatments) would increase nutrient digestibility and utilization in corn-soybean meal diets for pigs. The data from these experiments suggest that the phytase addition of 500 phytase units per kilogram of diet, along with a 0.1% reduction in dietary calcium and phosphorus, increases amino acid and energy digestibility approximately 4% (varies depending on the amino acid and energy criteria measured) in corn-soybean meal diets for grow-finish pigs.