On-Farm Experience with Swine Liquid Feeding: Grow-Finish Pigs

Posted in: Nutrition, Pork Insight Articles by admin on April 5, 2014 | No Comments

Van Ryswyck farm installed a liquid feeding system and evaluated their experience with the systems. There were initial problems when starting with high moisture corn as it was processed in a way that was unsuitable for the system, and also later when adding condensed whey permeate which increased backfat too much. After modifying the feed supply and the mixing and feeding program, both ingredients were used without further problems in the system or carcass characteristics. The system is susceptible to power surges and acid damage from whey, but labour is reduced, feed intake is excellent, and performance comparable. As well, the initial system installation is economically feasible, and the system provides a savings in feed expense. Van Ryswyck farm was overall satisfied with the feeding system, although it does take some initial modifications and adjustments.

Feeding the Pigs’ Immune System and Alternatives to Antibiotics

Posted in: Nutrition, Pork Insight Articles by admin on April 3, 2014 | No Comments

Removing antibiotics from pig diets can often result in more health problems and reduced performance, especially immediately post-weaning. Three ways to compensate for the lack of antibiotics are to modify management strategies, nutritional strategies, or use alternative feed additives. One nutritional strategy is to lower the crude protein in the diet. Protein increases fermentation, and presents a substrate for pathogen growth. Protein also requires more energy to digest, and fermentation can produce compounds that can damage the intestinal walls. Post-weaning diets can be lowered to 18% protein and maintain performance with supplemented amino acids. Protein can be lowered further, but performance may be less, although this could be worthwhile if performance was predicted to be lowered by diarrhea anyways. Feeding cooked white rice and animal protein rather than higher fibre grains can also reduce diarrhea post-weaning. Rice is mainly digested in the small intestine, so pathogens in the large intestine receive less nourishment. However, contradictory studies have shown barley and oats to reduce post-weaning diarrhea, even though they result in hindgut fermentation. Restricted feeding is another option, as is adding functional proteins like spray dried plasma. Spray dried plasma is thought to improve performance by providing immunoglobulins, so other sources of immunoglobulins including protein whey from dairy milk and egg proteins should work as well. A final nutritional strategy is to liquid feed, and fermentation of the liquid diet before feeding will further reduce intestinal irritation.

One of the dietary additives that can reduce post-weaning diarrhea is an acidifier. Organic acids, possibly some inorganic acids, and acid salts have been added to diets with varying positive results. Probiotics are live bacteria cultures that are intended to colonize the intestinal tract, and positive performance results have been seen post-weaning with the inclusion of lactic acid and yeast cultures. Prebiotics, like non-digestible oligosaccharides, promote beneficial bacteria growth in the intestines, and certain essential oils have antimicrobial properties that may be useful against pathogens. Finally, the addition of minerals including selenium, copper sulfate, zinc oxide, chromium, and reducing limestone and inorganic phosphate can all have a positive impact on intestinal health and growth performance. By using a combination of nutritional strategies and dietary additives, post-weaning growth performance and intestinal health can be maintained without the use of antibiotics.

Improving Feed Efficiency

Posted in: Nutrition, Pork Insight Articles by admin on March 27, 2014 | No Comments

Improving feed efficiency does not necessarily mean reducing costs, but more likely involves getting pigs to market weight faster and gaining barn space. Various additives can be used to improve feed efficiency, with the most effective being antibiotic growth promoters followed by organic acids. Feed form can improve efficiency if feed is pelleted or if particle size is reduced, although too fine may increase ulcers. Increasing nutrient density will improve feed efficiency, and this can be done by feeding more energy or by the addition of enzymes.  Amino acid supplementation can be used create an ideal balance without wasting energy. Many co-products offer a decrease in feed costs, but they may also be able to maintain feed efficiency. When formulating diets with co-products, producers should strive to also maintain the feed efficiency.

High Fiber Swine Diets

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Including co-products in swine diets can often increase the fiber content above that of corn and soybean meal diets. The fermentability, viscosity, and gut passage rate can vary between sources of fiber, and can influence bacteria colonization and endocrine responses. Nursery pigs can possibly maintain performance on lower energy, higher fiber diets. A study testing the effects of replacing soybean meal with alternative ingredients found no clear pattern to the feed intake changes, even though digestibility decreased. When energy and amino acid content were kept constant, pigs maintained growth performance with the addition of certain alternative ingredients. Grow-finish pigs may also be able to maintain growth performance with alternative ingredients, but the higher fiber diets tend to increase gut volume and weight, so dressing percent decreases. Feeding co-products offers a the opportunity to reduce feed costs, but usually increase the dietary fiber of a diet.

Challenges Associated with Reproductive Failure in Sows

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Reproductive performance in sows can be impeded by sub-optimal management or by disease challenges. Synchronizing estrus in a group of sows makes management easier. Weaning of sows should naturally synchronize sows, but delays or failures to return can occur due to environmental, management, or genetic variables. Some of the pharmaceutical methods to control estrus are administering PG600 on the first day after weaning, feeding Matrix® for 7 days after weaning, or Ovugel® 24 hours before inseminating. Feed intake during lactation is also a factor in returning to estrus. Four basic feed intake patterns are increasing throughout, low throughout, initially low then gradually increasing, and initially increasing then dropping off. The last three patterns have more problems returning to estrus than the first, and a rapid drop off in feed intake is often seen in primiparous sows. There are multiple diseases that can impact reproductive performance, and can cause an increase in mummies, stillborns, and/or abortions. Finally, management can affect reproductive performans. For example, a sow has discharge and a return to estrus after breeding has often been bred post-ovulation, and the uterus is susceptible to infection at this time. A combination of lactation feeding, disease control, and management strategies can reduce problems associated with reproductive performance, and pharmaceuticals can be a useful tool as well.

Feeding the Sow: Comparison of Gestational and Lactation Programs

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The reproductive performance of a sow can be affected by the feed intake of her previous lactation, which can be affected by the gestation feed intake. Lactation feed intake can be influenced by many factors including litter size, lactation length, parity, environment, feed allowance, water intake, stockmanship, and comfort. Some of the feeding strategies that exist include slowly increasing feed to a target, feeding ad libitum the entire lactation length, and self-feeding through triggering feed release. Little data exists to support one method over the others. A trial was run to try to identify the best gestation and lactation feeding strategy. The gestation diet was fed either based on BCS (conventional) or weight and backfat thickness (Kansas). Lactation feeding was ad libitum after day 3 (conventional), increasing to ad libitum over 13 days (ramp), or self-feeding (ad libitum). So far, partial data collection has been conducted, but it has not yet been analyzed. Since only preliminary data is available, no conclusions can be drawn. However, the data suggests the ramp lactation feeding may result in the highest feed intake, lowest weight loss, and highest weaning weights.

Feeding the Sow: Peri-Partum

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The feeding strategy around peri-partum is important to ensure the productivity of the sow, and the growth of her litter. Late gestation feeding generally involves supplying the sow’s increase demands, but there are various studies on whether increasing energy intake or amino acids are more important, or if feed intake in general should be increased. An alternative approach is to decrease feed in late gestation, as high feed intake during this time may decrease lactation feed intake. Generally immediately before farrowing and during farrowing a sow will not eat, but if the day she will farrow is not known she producers will usually still give the full feed amount. The sow may have a dip in feed intake during early lactation, and producers can either feed ad libitum or restricted during this time. If restrictive feeding is used, the amount of feed supplied should increase quickly over the next few days. The NCERA-219 committee conducted a study on gradually decreasing late gestation feed allowance to promote lactation feed intake. Three treatments were run: 2.0kg throughout gestation (control), 1.8 to start and then 2.7 kg after day 85 (step-up), or 1.8kg to start, 2.7kg day 75-108, and then decreased to 0.9kg (step-down). The results showed no difference in early lactation feed intake, number born alive, stillborns, percent surviving lactation, litter birth weight, or preweaning gains. The stepdown sows had a tendency to have fewer born alive for the following litter. The feeding treatment affected sow body weight, but had no effect on lactation or litter performance.

Patterns of Nitrogen Retention in Gestating Gilts

Posted in: Nutrition, Pork Insight Articles by admin on January 29, 2014 | No Comments

This study examined the patterns of nitrogen retention in gestating sows, and protein deposition with varying energy intake. Sows were fed 15% above or 15% below recommended energy intake, and N-balance was determined five times during gestation. Protein deposition was significantly higher when energy intake was higher, as stated in NRC (2012), but protein deposition levels were lower than predicted by NRC. By accurately determining nutritional requirements throughout gestation, sow needs can be more accurately met and costs saved by reducing nutrient loss.

Non-Protein Nitrogen is Used Efficiently for Improving Protein Deposition and Feed Efficiency in Growing Pigs

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The balance between amino acids and nitrogen is important to consider when formulating diets. When diets are low in nitrogen non-essential amino acids are also lowered, and the nitrogen needed to produce non-essential amino acids to build muscle protein will come from other amino acids in excess, or from non-protein nitrogen. This study tested the supplementation of ammonium salts to provide non-protein nitrogen when non-essential amino acids were limited, as would occur in a low protein diet. Increasing amounts of non-protein nitrogen increased feed efficiency compared to a low protein negative control, decreased feed intake, and did not affect weight gain.

Impact of Nursery Diet Quality and Fish Oil Supplementation on Growth Performance of Pigs

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Feeding lower complexity starter diets has been shown to have no effect on overall growth performance, but may affect immune response and growth during a disease challenge. This study tested the effect of adding fish or corn oil to low or high complexity diets on immune function. In early phases, the low protein diet had lower ADG, ADFI, and Gain:Feed. Fish oil had treatments showed no difference in ADG, tended to  have lower ADFI, and had a significantly better Gain:Feed. The increased Gain:Feed with fish oil may suggest some improvement in immune response.