Managing Mycotoxins Differently
Grain contaminated with fusarium mould is at a higher prevalence when the conditions are humid. A mycotoxin that can be produced from fusarium mould in cereal grains is deoxynivalenol. Pigs are very sensitive to this mycotoxin, with only 1 ppm guideline for ingestion. Often multiple...
Effectiveness of Sprinkling During Transport
When air temperatures exceed 20 °C outside, pig comfort and meat quality can be improved during transport by sprinkling pigs before transport and unloading. Mortality of pigs during transport increases when it is hot outside and there are no regulations for cooling the pigs down....
Welfare Assessment Systems: What are the Differences
Food quality not includes the environmental impact, local economy, health, safety along with nutritional value, so animal welfare is increasingly becoming and important attribute to food quality. Various standards for welfare have been developed and a third party is needed to make sure that they...
Building Better Bacon: Genomics Tools for Pork Quality
New genomic tools may be able to measure traits like pork quality and other heritable traits. Classical genetic evaluation has previously been used which involves breeding the best of the herd. Genomics is more accurate and can be used in traits that are hard to...
New Measures in Assessing Sow Lameness
Animal well-being and economic viability depend on being able to identify risk factors affecting sow longevity and welfare. New technologies to measure lameness are being developed, along with assessment tools for figuring out temperament traits are being researched. These can be used to improve animal...
Concentrating Energy in Young Pig Diets
Canola meal can be thought of as a supplemental protein source or a novel feed energy source due to the residual oil presence. Expeller-pressed canola meal has higher fibre content, but does not alter weaned pigs feed efficiency, nursery end weight or daily weight gain....
Feeding Sows More Efficiently
Refining amino acid requirements throughout gestation can help save costs, as they are often overfed nutrients at the start of gestation and underfed at the end. A singe phase feeding program does this, so a phase feeding program with two diets that is parity-segregated should...
Can Simple Nursery Diets Save You Money?
Compensatory growth is possible after reductions in growth rate, so nursery diet costs may be reduced without affecting growth performance in the long run. Robustness is decreased when fed a simple nursery diet compared to a complex one. No differences were found in carcass quality...
What Can We Learn From the Three Hitch Point
Standardizing operating systems may have many benefits. Benchmarking studies help measure these benefits and they have shown that standardizing may lead to large financial yields. Areas of focus should be the physical building, mechanical systems, animal handling, electrical systems and waste systems. These systems often...
Euthanasia Alternatives
Several advantages can be found when implementing timely and well-planned euthanasia's. Unnecessary suffering and costs are both reduced and welfare is improved due to a higher chance of survival of the other piglets. The most common euthanasia method in Canada is blunt force trauma, but...