Nursery Management Strategies

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Successful nutrition of the nursery pig should begin with as heavy a pig as possible, feed as simple diets as possible, and focus on nursery feeding management. Pigs at a lighter weight at weaning are at a higher risk of death and disease. Weaning weight is important with all ages of pigs but is not as important as the weaning age of pigs. Younger pigs gain less than older pigs at the start of the nursery phase. The newly weaned piglet needs a lot of energy so thus needs low-cost, high energy, highly digestible diets. Two feeding options for soybean meal are: 1) Use a low amount and steadily increase it over time and 2) Use soybean meal as a partial replacement for more expensive specialty proteins. Adding fibre and/or restricting feed intake are not good for controlling diseases. Ingredient selection should be based on lowest cost, maximizing intake, and digestibility. The piglets digestive system is undeveloped right after weaning so ingredients must be used that can be digested and that help the digestive system grow and develop. After weaning, 25 to 50% of the feeding pan should be visible for the first few days. As the piglets discover this and begin to adjust to it, the level should be rapidly reduced to 25%. This does not reduce the average daily gain and feed efficiency/daily gain both improve because of decreased wastage and the continuous access to fresh feed.

“The Mexican Hog Industry: Moving Beyond 2003”

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For many years, Mexican hog producers benefited from favorable prices.
Being among the highest in the world and certainly the highest among the
NAFTA countries, prices usually were large enough to compensate for the
very high costs of hog production in Mexico as well as certain institutional
barriers. Today, however, the Mexican hog industry is facing a diverse set
of economic challenges that threaten the very survival of many producers.
These challenges include:
Competition with cheaper meat alternatives, such as chicken;
Changes in consumer preferences due to public perceptions that health
problems are associated with pork;
Delayed implementation of sound eradication campaigns for Classical
Swine Fever, Aujeszky’s Disease, and other swine diseases; and
The lasting consequences of the recurrent financial crises that Mexico
has suffered over the past 25 years.
Despite the many benefits that NAFTA is bringing to the Mexican economy,
the agreement’s impact on hog prices is leading some Mexican producers to
treat NAFTA as a scapegoat for all the problems that the industry faces. The
purpose of this paper is to show how Mexican hog producers can take
advantage of NAFTA in order to increase their competitiveness. In
particular, lowering feed costs, improving transportation facilities, and
establishing greater control over swine diseases would go a long way
towards increasing the competitiveness of Mexican producers.

Interstate Livestock Movements

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Pork Policies in Japan

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Transgenic Approaches to Enhance the Environmental and Physiological Characteristics of Pigs and Their Impact on the Pork Industry

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Transgenic selection is the genetic modification of an organism via addition or removal of select genes. Transgenic selection can do what selective breeding is unable to do, or do it with more certainty. Success in enhancing productivity of domestic animals has been achieved by the use of injectable growth hormone. Transgenic pigs have been developed that generate phytase in the saliva in order to digest typically unavailable phosphorus, without the need of dietary phytase. This in turn results in the need to not supplement diet with phosphorus, thereby reducing phosphorus emission in wastes. Transgenic pigs have been produced in Japan that contained the plant gene FAD2 that produces an enzyme involved in the synthesis of beneficial fatty acids.

Some transgenic work has been done in other species that could prove to be beneficial in the swine industry. In cattle, the protein lactoferrin can be secreted by transgenic cows, which could help piglet immunity. Mastitis in mice could lead to a transgenic pig that creates an enzyme in the udder to break down the bacteria that cause mastitis (such as Staphylococcus aureus). Some work in mice could also lead to transgenic pigs that synthesize important antibodies. Pigs created transgenically need to be examined to make sure there is nothing that could be allergenic to humans as a result of this DNA manipulation. When transgenic pigs become available (estimate 3 to 4 years), there will be no need for production changes. They will be able to grow and thrive in current operation standards. There is a gradual change in consumer awareness of valuable characteristics of transgenic products such that by the time there are transgenic pigs ready for market there will be an informed and accepting consumer base ready to purchase transgenic pork.

Nursery Management – Big Pens

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Lately there has been interest in increasing the pen size of nursery pigs (from about 22 to 50 – 150 pigs). Ideas for a large pen design include a fully slatted floor, feeders along the length of the room and centre, and 4 pens per room. Feeders are one of the most limiting factors in this design (there MUST be adequate access to enough feeders). The advantages to large group sizes include cost, extra space utilization, savings in labour cost, less moving and mixing, and more forgiving in regards to crowding. Some of the disadvantages include difficulty in handling and age and health. To get this system up and running, 20% more feeders and drinkers, hospital pens, an alley, 80 per pen, and adequate space are all recommended.

Benefits of COOL to the Swine Industry

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It is not a wise strategy to implement a costly program to inform Americans that 89% of the pork they eat is of U.S. origin when it appears that fewer than 75% of Americans are willing to pay a premium for U.S. pork.
Basics of COOL
The 2002 Farm Bill contained a controversial provision mandating country of origin labeling (COOL) of certain unprocessed foods (beef, pork, lamb, fish, seafood, peanuts, fruits and vegetables) sold through non-small grocery stores (i.e. stores which annually sell more than $230,000 of fruits and vegetables) beginning on September 30, 2004. The basic concept of COOL appears to be popular with consumers. Much of the controversy about COOL arises from concerns that many in the livestock-red meat industry have that COOL will be a costly regulation with little or no benefit for their sector.

Feed intake, digestibility and N retention of a diet of water spinach supplemented with palm oil and / or broken rice and dried fish for growing pigs

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From Supply Push to Demand Pull : Agribusiness Strategies for Today’s Consumers

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Best-Cost Production of High Quality Pork: Bridging the Gap Between Pig Genetics, Muscle Biology/Meat Science and Consumer Trends

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The food supply industry is constantly changing. The center of the industry is the consumer and they are concerned about food safety and meat quality. Functional genomics (non-genetic modification – a DNA technology) is one of several techniques the industry is using to improve meat quality.

The increased demand for pork leanness requires enhanced muscular growth within pigs. This occurs in two stages: initially, embryonic myogenesis occurs (the development of muscular cells) and then muscular growth (hypertrophy – the muscles grow bigger). These factors can be improved via genetic selection. The interaction between muscle and environmental stress before slaughter complicates even further the understanding, measurement and control of the major sources of variation in lean quality. The use of quantitative genetics, selection indexes, and estimated breeding values (EBVs) for carcass quality has enabled the pork industry to make progress on tenderness, water holding capacity, etc.