New Tools for Precision Feeding: NRC (2012)

Posted in: Nutrition, Pork Insight Articles by admin on March 28, 2013 | No Comments

The new NRC(2012) nutritional requirements have been released and address some of the current concerns and advancements that have taken place. The NRC (2012) includes Excel nutritional requirement models for gestating sows, lactating sows, and grow-finish pigs. The main two limitations of  the models are the lack of cost-benefit analysis, and that the model does not accurately predict feed intake. The new NRC (2012) nutritional requirements also includes analysis of gender, Ractopamine inclusion, and immunocastration – including the weight at which it is done. These new inclusions will help producers who decide to use entire, or immunocastrated, boars, and to aid those who decide to split-feed based on sex. Good performance is indicated by feed efficiency and lean growth. The NRC also takes into account feed that contains lower energy and/or co-products, as these are used increasingly often with the current high feed costs. The use of these should be based on cost-benefit analysis, and the cost of energy in a diet.

Advances in Sow Nutrition- The Use of Mathematical Modelling in Sow Nutrition

Posted in: Nutrition, Pork Insight Articles by admin on | No Comments

Modern sows may have different nutritional needs due to their increased size, lean mass, and litter size. The lactation model is a mathematical model for the nutritional requirements based on the litter size and piglet growth. Whole animal models originally assumed identical milk production in all sows in a group, but improvements allow sow variation to be taken into account and the protein requirement distribution curve created. Other models exist, but they do not yet have the option to include inter-sow variation. Mathematical models are a valuable tool for predicting nutrient requirements of sows, and some are able to consider inter-sow variation.

Management Practices That Maximize Feed Efficiency

Posted in: Energy, Nutrition, Pork Insight Articles by admin on | No Comments

Increased feed costs highlight the importance of feed efficiency, which can be measured in multiple ways. However, feed costs and barn management should not be overlooked if feed efficiency is improved. Since there are multiple ways to measure feed efficiency, care needs to be taken when for in farm comparisons, and for bench-marking comparisons. Feed efficiency can be impacted by the barn environment, genetics, herd health, diet composition, and pig management. The barn environment mainly concerns maintaining proper temperature, which can be affected by ventilation and dampness. Genetics can alter feed efficiency, growth rate, and feed intake, so there will likely be trade-offs to improve one or multiple traits. High herd health status will improve feed efficiency, and highlights the need for strong biosecurity protocol. Diet composition can influence feed efficiency through energy concentrations, nutrients, additives, and form of feed. Finally, pig management includes feeder design, feeder space, and whether pigs are sorted (not recommended).

Oilseed Co-Products as Alternative Ingredients

Posted in: Nutrition, Pork Insight Articles, Swine Innovation by admin on November 2, 2012 | No Comments

Who can afford to feed fat(s) to pigs now-a-days?  With feed tallow, grease blends, and canola oil prices at record highs, oilseed and bio-diesel co-products offer an alternative to supplementing dietary fats in swine diets.  Cost per Mcal of residual oil content has changed our paradigm from considering canola as a traditional supplemental protein source to a novel dietary energy source.  Expeller pressed, extruded pressed or screw-pressed canola meal or cake, the latter two processed locally, offer opportunities to reduce producers’ feed cost and beef up dietary energy.

Fine Tuning Your Operation When Times Are Tight

Posted in: Nutrition, Pork Insight Articles, Prairie Swine Centre, Press Releases by admin on October 5, 2012 | No Comments

Any time is a good time to review management practices within your operation.  In the current environment of high feed prices and tight margins producers are more aggressively seeking ways to reduce costs and increase revenue.  Prairie Swine Centre’s research program focuses on ways to enhance the economic position of pork producers throughout Canada.  The following list are some, easy-to-adopt ideas, that can be incorporated into your operation immediately.  Many of these ideas may be already implemented in your operation – in that case it serves as a reminder as to the importance of each aspect.

1. Adding peas to the diets at 60% inclusion
   1. Work at Prairie Swine Centre has shown a high inclusion (60%) of peas does not necessarily result in reduced feed intake.  At current market conditions, every $10/mt reduction in finishing diets will save approximately $1.20 per market hog.  A bi-weekly publication (Feed Pea Benchmark) produced by Saskatchewan, Alberta and Manitoba Pulse Growers provides a quick summary on what the price of peas needs to be in order to price into diets.
2. Monitor Temperature
   1. Elevated barn  temperatures reduce feed intake and thus growth rate. For every 1°C above the pig’s thermoneutral zone, feed intake drops by 1-2% and growth rate drops by about 3%. Thus, for every °C above the pigs thermoneutral zone, net income is reduced by $0.50 to $0.75 per pig.
   2. Reduced nocturnal temperature.  Reducing the setpoint temperature by 6°C during hot weather, the barn becomes cooler at night, with somewhat shorter duration of high temperatures. The net result was an increase in growth rate of 2-5%, equal to 2 to 5 fewer days to market; this is valued at $0.50 to $1.00 per pig sold.
   3. The past three winters PSC has been challenging our lower setpoint temperatures in all rooms by reducing setpoints1-2^oC lower than published values.  The result is lower utility costs and no change in productivity (7% or more reduction in utility costs).
3. Properly adjusted water nipples and flow rates
   1. By adjusting nipple drinker height, water wastage can be reduced by up to 20% for grower/finisher pigs. High flow rate can result in more water spillage from nipple drinkers.
   2. Nipple drinkers should be adjusted to 5cm higher than the smallest pig in the pen.  Having the drinker adjusted to a lower  setting will result in additional 10% water wastage in grower and 20% in finisher.
   3. Water wastage increased by 7% with a higher water flow rate of 1,000 ml/min compared to 500 ml/min.
4. Properly adjusted feeders

• A 5% feed wastage at the present time costs the pork producer more than $2 per pig sold. It may be impossible to eliminate feed wastage, but research at Prairie Swine Centre has shown that with most commercial feeders, wastage of 3% or less is not an unreasonable expectation.  Research has shown that having a feeder adjusted to achieve 40% pan coverage will have the optimal combination of reducing feed wastage and maximizing pig performance.

6. Energy levels in finishing diets
   1. Under typical market conditions, high energy diets do not necessarily result in the highest return over feed cost.  Feed efficiency is improved with higher energy diets, however  additional diet costs far exceed the beneficial impact of feed efficiency.  Cost savings range from $3-$5.00 per hog under current market conditions.
7. Review your ideal shipping core
   1. This requires monitoring feed intake and growth as pigs approach market weight and comparing this to the changes in yield and index as market weights increase. In this way, determine the cost of adding an extra kilogram to the market weight, and compare that cost to the added income.
   2. With a finishing diet costing $0.25 per kilogram, and a feed conversion at of 4.0:1, it costs $1.00 to add 1 kg to the live weight. Assuming a dressing percentage of 80% and an index of 109, the price of pigs must be at least $1.15 per ckg to break even on added market weight.
       
8. Power washing and sprinkling
   1. Recent work at Prairie Swine Centre indicates soaking prior to pressure-washing a fully-slatted production room may not be necessary.  Additional labour costs associated without sprinkling are offset by lower water (including well pumping) costs.
   2. Conventional  pressure washer nozzles have been shown to be the most efficient in terms of labour requirements and total water used.  They have been shown to save up to $50 per hog marketed when compared to other nozzle types.
       
9. Check particle size
   1. Once the diet has been formulated there are still opportunities to reduce costs by observing particle size stays within the 650-700 micron range to ensure optimum digestibility. Frequently, due to screen wear, improper screen size or hammer wear, the feeds milled on farm are significantly over the 700-micron threshold.  For every 100 microns under 700 the feed conversion improves 1.2%. With feed costs today of $110 per finished hog, moving from say a 3.0 F/G to a 2.96 F/G (the effect of 1.2% improvement, or 100 micron reduction in feed particle size) is worth $1.30 per pig marketed.

While this is not an exhaustive list, it’s meant to take a quick look at your operation and potentially find a couple of hidden dollars, or perhaps re-enforce why we do certain things.  If you are looking for more information there is a wide array of resources available at www.prairieswine.com – or if you have other ideas to save costs don’t hesitate to any one of the Research Scientists at Prairie Swine Centre.

Determining the NE Content of Diets and Ingredients

Posted in: Nutrition, Pork Insight Articles by admin on July 23, 2012 | No Comments

In the pork industry feed is consistently the largest input cost. Within feed, energy is the most expensive ingredient.Therefore it is important to have a consistent and accurate measurement of feed energy for any diet. NE is agreed to be the most accurate measure of dietary energy but complicated to evaluate. NE is defined as the metabolizable energy minus the heat increment. Essentially it is the efficiency of the utilization of metabolizable energy. Since NE measure the amount of energy an animal uses for productive functions (movement, lactation, growth, and gestation) it is considered the ideal energy measure. The paper proposes three ways to determeine NE 1)Comparative slaughter technique measures the energy gained in a carcass over a period of time. 2) Prediction equations are used to estimate NE, this requires specific knowledge of ingredients or digestible nutrients. Most of these equations have been made using a calorimeter, and require that measurements of nutrients be done in  similar way (lab analysis) that the equation was developed. 3) Indirect calorimeter is another way to measure NE which involves using an individual pig air chamber. It is important for producers and feed formulators to have a basic understanding of the derivation of the methods used and why these values may vary depending on the system used.

Emerging Technologies with Potential to Influence Feed Efficiency

Posted in: Nutrition, Pork Insight Articles by admin on June 5, 2012 | No Comments

This presentation by Dr. Denise Beaulieu of the Prairie Swine Centre was presented as the 7th in a series of 8 webinars on Feed Efficiency hosted by the Prairie Swine Centre. To access the presentation scroll down and click on Download PDF

Flax-fed omega-3 pork: Assessing the long chain fatty acid value

Posted in: Nutrition, Pork Insight Articles by admin on | No Comments

The abstract for a study testing the omega-3 levels in fat from flax-fed pigs. 300mg of omega-3 per serving are needed for a product to be classified as enriched, so the fat from pigs fed 0, 5, or 10% flax was tested. All cuts tested from the 5 and 10% diets were high enough to be considered enriched. Eicosapentenoic acid (EPA) and docosapentaenoic acid (DPA) increased with increased flax, but docosahexaunoic acid (DHA) was unaffected.

Dietary ω-6 to ω-3 fatty acid ratios affect the immune responses of newly weaned pigs challenged with E. coli lipopolysaccharide

Posted in: Nutrition, Pork Insight Articles by admin on | No Comments

The abstract for a study testing the effect of varying the ω-6 to ω-3 fatty acid ratio and source in diets on the immune response to E. coli lipopolysaccharide. Rectal temperature and area under curve (AUC) for the cytokine IL-1β showed no difference between diets. AUC for the cytokines IL-6, TNFα, and IL-8 was increased for the 5:1 plant treatment, but it is not yet clear if the increased response is beneficial or not.

Enzymes enhance degradation of DDGS, revealed by in vitro gas production and microscopic examination

Posted in: Nutrition, Pork Insight Articles by admin on | No Comments

The abstract for a study testing the effect of enzymes on corn and wheat DDGS. Gas production and carbohydrate fermentation was tested for a diets with the addition of carbohydrate- degrading enzymes (C), C with protease (P), and a control. Gas production was higher for corn DDGS, and the highest with C. VFA was similar, but the highest was corn DDGS control or C. The fibre-starch-protein matrix of corn DDGS was further degraded than wheat DDGS. Digestibility can be improved with carbohydrate-degrading enzymes and is higher for corn DDGS, but adding protease does not improve or actually decreases digestibility.