National Sow Housing Conversion Project
The National Sow Housing Conversion Project (NSHCP) was conceived as a descriptive project to facilitate the successful conversion of Canada’s sow barns to group housing. The project involved collaboration from industry participants and academic researchers working together on a comprehensive strategy involving demonstration farms, technology transfer materials...
Determining Effective Enrichments for Group Housed Sows
Providing enrichment involves making changes to the environment that are intended to increase the range of normal Behaviours and improve the biological functioning and well-being of animals. Enrichment in group housing systems has the potential to significantly improve animal welfare by reducing aggression and injuries, stimulating exercise and the...
Cleaning Ease and Animal Welfare Implications of Trailer Design
The aim of this initial study was to develop an inventory list of trailers commonly used for the transportation of market hogs in Canada. Hog transport companies in Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Ontario were visited in order to document various trailer features specifically those influencing ease of cleaning and animal...
Influence of Sow Lactation Feeding System on Performance
All three feeding systems resulted in similar sow and litter performance, however, both the electronic and modified feeding system resulted in a significant reduction in feed wastage and, therefore, an estimated saving in feed costs of $8.50 per lactation compared to manual feeding. The modified feeding system is a...
Spray Dried Bovine Plasma for DON Contaminated Nursery Diets
The current experiment showed that DON did have a detrimental effect on ADFI and also showed some negative eff ects on ADG. Moreover, SDBP showed a beneficial effect on ADFI when present with DON in the diet but did not have a beneficial effect on ADG. Finally, DON...
Effect of Grinding on the Digestible and Net Energy Content of Field Peas
This project aimed at generating reliable information on the digestible and net energy content (DE and NE) in growing pigs fed with field peas ground at 3 different screen-opening sizes (fine, medium and coarse) to obtain different average particle sizes: 156, 650 and 1035 μm, respectively. The digestibility...
Flaxseed Meal in Swine Rations: Standardized Ileal Amino Acid Digestibility
Flaxseed meal contains 34% CP and also contains appreciable amounts of many of the essential amino acids. The SID coefficients for the essential amino acids range from 67 to 94%, which affeccts the overall protein quality of the product; however, the amounts of SID essential amino acids in...
Net Energy Content of Canola Meal and Full-Fat Canola Seeds in Swine
The project aimed to estimate the net energy (NE) content of canola meal (CM) and full-fat canola seeds (FFCS) in swine and to validate these values, through growth studies using diets containing graded levels of CM or FFCS. No difference in average daily gain and feed conversion ratio...
Digestible and Net Energy Content of Toasted and Non-Toasted Canola Meal
Canola meal (CM) is a valuable source of essential amino acids for pigs, although the digestibility of these nutrients is limited by both composition (high dietary fibre level) and processing (toasting). Its low energy value is probably the most limiting factor for its use in swine nutrition and...
Response of Finishing Pigs to High and Low Crude Protein Diets
Supplementing a low protein diet with the limiting amino acids is often more cost effective than using an additional amount of the particular protein source. Two experiments conducted using grower and finisher pigs confirmed that performance could be maintained when either high or low crude protein diets are...