SEARCH
Industry Partners
Prairie Swine Centre is an affiliate of the University of Saskatchewan
Prairie Swine Centre is grateful for the assistance of the George Morris Centre in developing the economics portion of Pork Insight.
Financial support for the Enterprise Model Project and Pork Insight has been provided by:
Pig and herd level prevalence of Toxoplasma gondii in Ontario finisher pigs in 2001, 2003, and 2004
Posted in: Ontario Pork, Pork Insight Articles by admin on November 19, 2007 | No Comments
The objective of this study was to estimate the apparent and true prevalence of exposure to Toxoplasma gondii in Ontario finisher pigs. During the study period (2001 to 2004), sera from 6048 pigs were tested with a commercial enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA); 103 farms were included 1 to 3 times in the study. True prevalence was estimated using a Bayesian approach. Apparent prevalence at the pig level was 1.59% [95% confidence interval (CI): 0.45, 2.99] in 2001, 0.06% (95% CI: 0.00, 0.46) in 2003, and 0.26% (95% CI: 0.00, 0.82) in 2004. Apparent prevalence at the herd-level was 13.7% (95% CI: 7.5, 22.3) in 2001; 1.25% (95% CI: 0.03, 6.77) in 2003, and 3.75% (95% CI: 0.78, 10.6) in 2004. Similarly, posterior Bayesian estimates of true prevalence at the pig level were 1.7% [95% probability interval (PI): 1.2, 2.2] in 2001, 0.2% (95% PI: 0.04, 0.4) in 2003, and 0.3% (95% PI: 0.1, 0.7) in 2004. At the herd level, posterior estimates of prevalence were 11.6% (95% PI: 7.4, 16.8) in 2001, 0% (95% PI: 0.0, 2.5) in 2003, and 1.2% (95% PI: 0.0, 5.0) in 2004 when a herd cut-point $ 1 was used. Exposure to T. gondii in finishing pig farms in Ontario appears to be infrequent.
A decision support tool to evaluate the impact of between animal variability and alternative management scenarios for growing-finishing pigs on growth and carcass characteristics, profits and nutrient excretion
Posted in: Ontario Pork, Pork Insight Articles by admin on November 14, 2007 | No Comments
This study intends to further develop a well tested pig growth and nutrient utilization model and to develop an easy to use decision support tool. These tools can be sued for improving profits and optimizing nutrient use and help make general management recommendations. The results of this study improved a well-tested and full-scale, dynamic, biological pig growth model, which has been expanded to reflect the pig’s response to the use of phytase and PayleanTM in the diet, to represent between animal variability within groups of pigs, and to increase flexibility in defining alternative shipping strategies. The model generates and records growth curves, changes in feed intake, carcass composition, phosphorous and nitrogen retention and economic returns for 1000 individual pigs within a group, and allows weekly sorting of market pigs for shipment. A simpler model was also made that is supposed to act as a decision support tool. The user can enter specific costs, prices and carcass grading systems and use the model to identify which management scenario maximizes dollars per pig.
Are they REALLY PRRSv Negative??? Detection of Very-low Rates of Infection in Nursery Pig Groups
Posted in: Ontario Pork, Pork Insight Articles by admin on November 11, 2007 | No Comments
Looking for low doses of PRRS is critical for correctly identifying the source of infection in young pigs who were recently weaned. An outbreak of PRRS can have economic losses in finishing pigs. If any pigs are infected with PRRSv the group that the pig is with will likely suffer from the virus as well and put other herds of pigs at risk if they are all kept in a dense area. A way to detect low rats of PRRSv is needed to help producers handle their PRRS management, protect their bio-security investments, detect early any new PRRSv infections of their sow herd, monitor uninfected replacement gilts in isolation, and to optimize production planning. Low rates of PRRS in nursery pigs are possible because some gilts can carry the disease in utero and infect a small amount 0f litters in the herd. To detect low rates of infection in herds, large numbers of animals must be tested to detect at least one infected pig, 374 pigs would have to be tested to have 95% confidence. This study used a chew-rope which was hung in each pen of a PRRS infected nursery. It was hypothesized that sensitivity of detection could be increased with less labour cost. The rope chewing behavior provided valuable insight and data about PRRS infections of nursery-aged pigs. A least cost method for hanging rope has also been developed. This information is to be presented through various mediums in the future.
Cost of Production Benchmark for Ontario, Manitoba and Iowa
Posted in: Ontario Pork, Pork Insight Articles by admin on November 8, 2007 | No Comments
This paper compares the costs of production of three major North American hog producing regions. Ontario, Manitoba, and Iowa all have specific advantages and disadvantages geographically that affect hog raising, such as distance to slaughter plants, price of land, access to feed grains, exchange rates, regulations as well as other factors. The hog business has been changing for years, Canada has had better numbers when it comes to piglets per sow per year because of the remaining amount of small farms in the US, it appears these small farms will cease to exist in the future as farming becomes more industrialized. Researchers have built an economic model that considers several factors to determine which region is best suited for raising hogs in an economically efficient way. The model determined that for farrow-to-wean operations, Manitoba was the best location based on a number of factors, and that for farrow-to-finish, Iowa was the best suited region for economic profit. With trade liberalization growing, agriculture becoming more industrialized, environmental concerns increasing and consumer demand for humanly raised food growing, it appears that the lowest cost producer will survive as they will be able to adapt to a changing market. This creates a need for in-depth economic modeling to be able to track all costs closely to remain competitive.
Reducing the negative impact of high dietary potassium levels on growth performance and carcass characteristics of growing-finishing pigs fed large amounts of co-products.
Posted in: Ontario Pork, Pork Insight Articles by admin on November 6, 2007 | No Comments
With the price of corn rising because more is being used for ethanol purposes, Ontario farmers have reason to look for alternative energy sources for pig diets. In this experiment pigs were fed different diets consisting of co-products as replacements for corn. 160 pigs, both male and female, were put on one of four diets to find if feeding co-products effected growth performance and carcass quality. Diet one was a conventional diet, the second had moderate amounts of co=products, the third had aggressive amounts of co-products and the last diet had added potassium carbonate to match levels of diet 3 to see if the increases potassium carbonate had negative effects on the pigs. Pigs on the non-control diet had reduced growth performance of 5% but did not have any change in feed efficiency and carcass quality. Although at high rates of co-products some kidney problems were detected. Also the pigs who received the increased potassium carbonate (diet 4) had some abnormalities in the kidneys. The paper suggests that a look into the problems being caused in the kidneys should be explored.
Production of phytase expressing Lactococcus Lactis and its potential for enhancing swine productivity, gut health and reducing environmental loading
Posted in: Ontario Pork, Pork Insight Articles by admin on | No Comments
Phosphorus is an expensive nutrient in pig diets and is usually the first factor that determines the amount of pig manure that can be applied to land. In order the maximize P utilization phytate degrading enzymes are routinely added to swine diets. The aim of the project was to genetically modify lactic acid producing bacteria, for the expression of the enzyme phytase. The resulting modified bacteria was examined for phytate phosphorus release in swine liquid feed. The researchers were able to successfully insert and express a gene that controls the production of phytase in a specific strain of lactic acid producing bacteria, the bacteria strain was Lactococcus Lactis which is commonly found in human food. Phytase activity was confirmed in genetically altered Lactococcus Lactis using Western Blot analyses and direct measurement of phytase activity. Growth and phytase activity of modified lactococcus Lactis should be explored further before they are used to inoculate liquid pig feed ingredients.
Mechanisms affecting pork meat quality in protein-restricted versus total feed-restricted dietary regimes
Posted in: Ontario Pork, Pork Insight Articles by admin on November 2, 2007 | No Comments
Pork producers are always trying to develop faster growing, leaner pigs with good meat quality. Restrictive feeding followed by compensatory growth can achieve targeted slaughter weights while increasing feed efficiency. This project attempts to find a restrictive diet that also improves meat quality. To achieve higher tenderness the researchers tested that if limiting a diet and dietary protein would result in significant compensatory growth in the finishing phase when the restrictions were removed. Restriction of protein levels in the diet did not actually have a major effect on growth rate in this trial. Restricted feed intake did reduce growth rate in the grower phase, and there was moderate compensatory growth following this. However, the limit fed animals did not catch up to the ad libitum fed animals resulting in an overall slower trial growth rate. The compensatory growth that was moderate did not result in a difference in tenderness, water-holding, cooking loss or colour of the pork. The results suggest that it is not practical to implement a feeding regime to increase meat tenderness by accelerating pig growth rate before slaughter.
Enhancing the Pork Meat Quality Value Chain
Posted in: Ontario Pork, Pork Insight Articles by admin on | No Comments
When purchasing pork, consistency of quality is a major factor for determining if people will once again buy the product. A more consistent product can have benefits for producers as major retailers will stick with a consistent product. Many things impact meat quality such as breeding, animal production, transport, slaughter and postmortem processing. There has been lots of work done about how individual activities effect pork quality but non done that considers all factors and how they work together. This research project examines how genetics, on-farm management, packing plant management, and nutrition interact to effect pork quality. This study intends to find reasons for the variability in pork quality, and to design and test handling and nutritional strategies to improve pork quality. Measurements of meat quality found that the variation in Ontario pork was the same as tests carried out during a US study. Using statistical models researchers were able to determine that the cause of variability was from individual producer practices, kill time at the packing plant, and temperature at the plant. Some nutritional strategies devised to improve meat quality was tryptophan added to the diet to reduce stress at the time of slaughter. A low glucogenic diet had better feed efficiency than a control diet and improved meat tenderness and marbling. For handling,the researchers tested the practice of pen-walking where they walked through the pens everyday to get the pigs familiar with humans. this proved to have positive implications on water holding capacity of the pigs when slaughtered.
Control of coccidiosis in pigs
Posted in: Ontario Pork, Pork Insight Articles by admin on October 31, 2007 | No Comments
Previous studies have determined that coccidia is a common disease in pigs at days of age 7-21. The diseases causes diarrhea and inconsistent growth. There is no information about how this disease effects pigs after 21 days of age, so the total impacts of coccidia may be greater. This study tries to determine the longer term effects of coccidia on growth up to 8 weeks. To test for coccidia fecal samples were collected at 2,3 and 5 week of age from 218 randomly selected pigs on three repetitiveness farms having coccidia problems. The weights of all the test pigs and their litter mates were recorded regularly. Pigs who tested positive for coccidia at age 2-3 weeks, were 435g lighter at 4 weeks of age than pigs that tested negitively. At 5 weeks of age these pigs were 703g ligher. Coccidia infections therefore had a significantly greater impact on growth than previously thought. The current treatment methods used by veterinarians, Deccox mixed with oral iron in the creep area and single treatment of Clinacox, were proven to have no beneficial effect on growth rates.
Cloning and expression of porcine complement C3d for enhanced vaccines
Posted in: Ontario Pork, Pork Insight Articles by admin on | No Comments
Young pigs have immature immune systems, this causes vaccines to have limited effects on neonatal piglets. Also after pigs ingest colostrum there immune system suppresses maternal antibodies. This creates a need for vaccines that can induce active immune responses in piglets before maternal antibodies decline to non-protective levels. Tests done on lab mice have shown that the complement component C3d has potent immune stimulating properties. In addition, biochemical studies in lymphocytes suggest that C3d should block the suppressive effects of maternal antibodies, stimulating active immune responses. Researchers were able to clone the gene fragment coding for “porcine complement C3d” and have introduced modifications into the DNA sequence to allow expression of C3d in E. coli, for subsequent use in vaccines.