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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:
Impact of immune system stimulation on nutrient utilization and response to dietary methionine plus cysteine intake in growing pigs
Posted in: Ontario Pork, Pork Insight Articles by admin on May 4, 2011 | No Comments
In commercial pigs barns pigs often have their immune systems stimulated (ISS) as they are expose to all sorts of air born pathegons and other challenging environmental factors. This has negitive impacts on productive growth, nutrient utilization and profitability. This study attempts to find a way that nutrition can reduce the negitive impacts of immune system stimulation on growth performance. The focus was on important amino acids that are involved with the immune system: methionine, cysteine and tryptophan. ISS was acheived by injecting pigs with a challenger, various indicators of ISS, including body temperature, were monitored to confirm effectiveness of ISS. The research showed that ISS does not influence nutrient digestibility, but reduces the pig’s growth performance potential. All three of the amino acids had increased dietary requirements when the immune system was stimulated. This research can allow for recommendations about adjusting intake of the three key amino acids to optimize the pig’s response to poor environmental factors that increase the chance of disease.
Epidemiological and cost/benefit analysis of PRRS intervention strategies
Posted in: Ontario Pork, Pork Insight Articles by admin on May 1, 2011 | No Comments
Swine producers have several options when it comes to treating pigs for PRRS. Some treatment methods include letting the disease follow its course and treating clinical signs of individuals and groups (no-intervention), others use commercial vaccines, and others will use pulmotil in the 4 weeks following the PRRS onset with or without virus exposure. The data about loses and expenditures during PRRS outbreaks are available, but there are no standard approaches to collect and to analyze such data. The objective of this study is to evaluate clinical and economical efficiency of commonly used PRRS intervention strategies in Canadian sow herds. In this study swine veterinarians were asked to provide records from sow farms that had PRRS outbreaks and to fill out questionnaires with demographics, diagnostics and intervention data. Results suggest that the no-intervention strategy seemed to be the most costly approach of managing a PRRS outbreak. Management of PRRS under alternative, and more costly strategies, was expected to yield higher revenues on average, although results vary among different scenarios and no single methods is best in all scenarios. It was hypothesize that most herds that experience PRRS outbreaks were using either commercial vaccination, or the homologous exposure and pulmotil strategy.
Development of a Rapid Test for Detecting Serum Antibodies to Classical Swine Fever Virus
Posted in: Ontario Pork, Pork Insight Articles by admin on March 1, 2011 | No Comments
Classical Swine Fever (CSV) has for the most part been eradicated in Canada, the US, Mexico and western Europe. Although the disease is still present in parts of Asia and the Caribbean. The disease has potential to cause massive economic losses if it is able to infect a herd. If a case is detected it must be reported to the World Organization for Animal Health. The objective of this study was to develop and validate enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay ELISA capable of detecting anti-bodies to as many CFVS strains as possible. The objectives of this study have yet to be completed including the development of a rapid test for detecting classical swine fever virus although work is still being done to achieve the end goal. In the coming months there are plans to continue to optimizing the competitive ELISA format using the new lot of recombinant Paderborn E2 antigen. Once all conditions for the cELISA have been optimized, analytic sensitivity and specificity along with limited diagnostic sensitivity and specificity will be evaluated using a bank of highly characterized CSFV antisera. The development of this test system will help pork producers easily test for CSFV and be able to respond faster to an outbreak keeping Canadian pork available for trade.
Preminum Pork Positioning
Posted in: Ontario Pork, Pork Insight Articles by admin on February 28, 2011 | No Comments
Inspire Group Inc. has compiled a presentation about how to market pork as a premium meat and provided specific ways of positioning, marketing and communicating the premium pork category to consumers in a relevant and compelling way. Their intent was to define the target audience and reveal positioning strategies based on consumer wants and needs. A focus group of typical consumers was held and participants were asked questions about their spending habits and questions about how they felt about pork. These results were compiled and recommendations were made about how, based on this information, pork should be marketed and how the perception of pork can be tailored as a premium product.
Effective manipulation of fatty acid profiles in value-added pork products aimed at enhancing contribution of pork to human health
Posted in: Ontario Pork, Pork Insight Articles by admin on January 25, 2011 | No Comments
N-3 fatty acids have many benefits to human health. It is rather easy to manipulate the fatty acid profile of a pig by incorporating things like fax or fish oil into a corn based diet to increase the amount of N-3 fatty acids in the pigs meat. When a pigs consumes N-3 fatty acids they are largely deposited in the fat of the pigs so easy for humans to consume, although there has been concern about the effects they have on meat quality. Tests were carried out to determine if fatty acids could be incorporated into a pigs diet without effecting quality. To test product quality a test group of consumers were analyzed to see if they would accept N-3 enriched pork. The findings of these tests shows that value added n-3 fatty acid enriched pork can be produced by feeding pigs flax seed and corn based diets, without compromising pork meat quality, including consumer acceptance.
Expression of angiogenic basic fibroblast growth factor, platelet derived growth factor, thrombospondin-1 and their receptors at the porcine maternal-fetal interface
Posted in: Ontario Pork, Pork Insight Articles by admin on January 17, 2011 | No Comments
Commercial swine breeds in North America undergo two waves of spontaneous fetal loss; one during peri-attachment and another during mid-gestation. Although an exact mechanism for this loss is not known, deficits in vasculature at the attachment sites appear to be a major cause. We hypothesized that a balance between pro-angiogenic andanti-angiogenic factors is needed at the maternal-fetal interface for successful conceptus development. Six selected members of the pro-angiogenic fibroblast growth factor (FGF) and platelet derived growth factor (PDGF) families and anti-angiogenic factor thrombospondin-1 (TSP-1) and its receptor CD36 were quantified and localized at the porcine maternal-fetal interface at early and midgestation time points. Mesometrial endometrium was collected from non-pregnant gilts (n = 8). Endometrial and chorioallantoic membrane samples were collected from healthy and arresting conceptus attachment sites at gestation day (gd) 20 (n = 8) and gd 50 (n = 8). At gd20 arresting conceptus attachment sites were distinguished by decreased vasculature of the placental membranes and decreased conceptus size. At gd50 arresting conceptuses attachment sites were identified by smaller conceptus length and weight measurements. Quantitative real time PCR was used to determine relative transcript levels of genes of interest, and cellular localization was determined by immunohistochemistry in paraffin embedded endometrial sections. At gd20, endometrial samples from arresting conceptuses had elevated transcripts for bFGF, and PDGF-bb than healthy sites (p < 0.05). At gd50, bFGF, FGFR2, and CD36 were more abundant at arresting than at healthy conceptus attachment sites (p < 0.05). Chorioallantoic membrane from arresting conceptus attachment sites at gd20 had elevated transcripts for bFGF, FGFR1, FGFR2 and CD36 compared with healthy sites (p < 0.05). FGFR2 transcripts were more abundant in chorioallantoic membrane from arresting conceptuses at gd 50 (p < 0.05). Immunohistochemical localization of selected pro- and anti-angiogenic factors and receptors revealed their abundance in the luminal epithelium, uterine glands and perivascular areas of endometrium at gd20 and gd50. We provide comprehensive analysis of pro and anti-angiogenic factors at the porcine maternal fetal interface during early and mid-pregnancy. At mRNA levels, the majority of pro-angiogenic factors investigated were elevated at the sites of fetal arrest. These observations contrast with our previous findings of decreased V ascular Endothelial Growth Factor (VEGF) family members at arresting sites, and suggest that the bFGF family functions as a compensatory survival mechanism when major angiogenic proteins are decreasing at the sites of fetal arrest.
Development of a Plant-based Vaccine against Porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus: Research Progress and Future Prospects
Posted in: Ontario Pork, Pork Insight Articles by admin on December 10, 2010 | No Comments
Summary of research into using a plant model to produce an oral vaccine for Porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus (PRRSV). The disease caused by PRRSV is a major source of economic loss for producers and current vaccines are not effective so development of an effective oral vaccine would be very beneficial to the swine industry. The researchers used the cholera toxin B subunit (CTB) of Vibrio cholerae as an adjuvant, PRRSV GP5 or its neutralizing epitope (GP5-NE) as a vaccine antigen and the tobacco plant as a plant model. Antigen expression in the tobacco plant was successful however of low yield so further research is needed to increase yeild of the viral protein. Legume plants were also studied as an easily administered form of the vaccine.
Monitoring of Selected Hog Farms to Assess the Impacts of Implemented BMPs Resulting From the Nutrient Management Act
Posted in: Ontario Pork, Pork Insight Articles by admin on November 10, 2010 | No Comments
The new nutrient management act in Ontario will force producers to adopt new management practices to comply with the new laws. In order to evaluate how effective these new management activities are in reducing environmental impacts, on-farm monitoring programs will be required. This experiment involves three farms being monitored extensively, called “reference farms”. The sites were instrumented and monitoring protocols and strategies were developed to determine the environmental and economic benefits associated with the implemented beneficial management practices (BMPs.) The farms selected were meant to represent typical hog farms and also ones with environmental problems so that BMPs can be clearly assessed. The farms were assessed on nutrient distribution into the soil, ground water was monitored and tested as well as crop yields. The nitrogen budget was also a focus of the researchers work. Eight monitoring techniques are recommended in the paper to evaluate the effectiveness of the BMPs on the environment. It is suggested that the reference farms continue to test ground water and soil samples to be able to continually track the results of BMP.
Prophylaxis of experimentally induced ovomucoid allergy in neonatal pigs using Lactococcus lactis
Posted in: Ontario Pork, Pork Insight Articles by admin on November 5, 2010 | No Comments
Probiotic Lactococcus lactic (LL) is a drug used for the immune system and might prevent allergies by biasing from type-2 to a type-1 immune response. Researcher hypothesized that newborn pigs that are pretreated with LL are protected against allergies to ovomucoid (Ovm). The experiment consisted of two treatment groups, a control group, and a group that received oral doses of LL on days of age 1-7, 10, 12,14,21,28, and 35. The pigs were sensitized to Ovm by intraperitoneal injection together with cholera toxin. Pigs were then given egg whites on day 46 to see how their immune systems responded. Clinical signs and skin test positivity were less frequent in the LL group. Serum antibody were significantly increased on day 46 (post-sensitization) compared to day 14 (pre-sensitization). The LL-treated pigs had more related antibody activity and lower IgG1/IgG2 and IgE/IgG2 ratios indicating a type-1 bias in immune response. Oral treatment of neonatal pigs with LL reduced the frequency of of allergies to Ovm associated with reduced immune response. This supports the hygiene hypothesis and potential use of LL as a immunoregulator for neonatal pigs.
“Periweaning Failure to Thrive Syndrome (PFTS)” – difficulties of investigating an emerging clinical problem
Posted in: Ontario Pork, Pork Insight Articles by admin on August 21, 2010 | No Comments
Some young pigs suffer from a disease that causes them to be anorexic and experience catobolic events that leads to body store depletion. These pigs either die or are euthanized as they cannot grow properly.The condition causes mobilization of lipid stores, loss of muscle mass, failure to grow as well as other symptoms. This condition has been increasing recently so members from the Swine Health Management (SHM) section of the American Board of Veterinary Practitioners want to revisit “failure to thrive syndrome”. In these conference proceedings from the 2010 Leman conference SHM members discuss the disease in detail. The topics they cover are: Clinical presentation and progression to outcome, progression of the clinical pathologic process, pathologic changes and assumed metabolic changes, experiences and approaches to investigating an emerging clinical problem, and the difficulties of investigating an emerging clinical problem. The intent of this presentation is to educate stakeholders who are impacted by FTS they are researchers, diagnosticians and practitioners.