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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:
How animal management changes the expression of disease
Posted in: Pork Insight Articles, Production by admin on July 13, 2017 | No Comments
This presentation discusses current management factors at length.
1. Weaning Age principles- and the ”Suis-ide” diseases
2. Parity affects-parity segregation
3. Pig flow Continuous vs A-1-A-0 by room, barn, or by site, Multi-site: Commingled vs single source on the Finish Door
4. Large group size and subpopulations within
5. Disease agent virulence
Dietary Phosphorus Economic and Performance Implications
Posted in: Nutrition, Pork Insight Articles by admin on July 12, 2017 | No Comments
This presentation outlines how to better incorporate phosphorous into swine diets and improve digestibility with the use of phytase.
One solution offered is Low-phytate grains
– Low-phytate barley is being developed at Saskatoon, Brandon and Lacombe
– Certified seed may be commercially available by 2008
– Low-phytate peas are being developed at Saskatoon, corn in the US
-Low phytate barley has also been developed
The Real Value of Manure
Posted in: Economics, Pork Insight Articles by admin on | No Comments
This presentation outlines the use of pig manure as fertilizer and an estimation of value.
Driving the Bus • Canadian Swine Identification and Traceability
Posted in: Economics, Pork Insight Articles by admin on | No Comments
In the face of a disease outbreak, the Canadian Swine industry, in conjunction with government and other vested-interest parties, must be able to trace live animal movements and identify the associated premises, destinations, and transport vectors. Canada must be zoned in a way that allows areas not affected by a disease outbreak to continue to trade. An interim measure proposed is to divide the country into two zones at West Hawk Lake, Manitoba. Further thought must be given to additional zones in Canada. Consequently, the Canadian Pork Council and its affiliated provincial associations, boards and commissions are developing a pragmatic and effective nation-wide identification and traceability system.
Driving the Bus • Canadian Swine identification and traceability
New Innovations in Barn Manure Handling
Posted in: Air Filtration, Pork Insight Articles, Prairie Swine Centre by admin on July 10, 2017 | No Comments
“Two rooms have been built at the Floral site of Prairie Swine Centre to be used as air quality labs in a study of air contamination in intensive swine units. Two manure handling systems are presently being tested in order to decide which manure handling system is better at reducing the airborne contamination from manure. This will be followed by studies on feed and feeders, to allow future testing of the effects of various air qualities on pigs and people in these rooms. Future designs of buildings and equipment can then concentrate on reducing the air contamination that is the most harmful to pigs and workers.”
Identifying Factors Contributing to Ammonia Emissions
Posted in: Air Filtration, Pork Insight Articles by admin on | No Comments
Ammonia is a harmful gas for workers, pigs and the environment and contributes to odour in and around the barn. Many factors influence the emission process and with a better understanding of the formation and transmission of ammonia, we will be better suited to understand why and how ammonia emissions can be reduced.
This paper will provide background information about the effect of ammonia on workers, pigs and the environment; explain the basic ammonia formation and transmission processes; and identify various factors that affect ammonia emission from a swine barn. Based on this information, methods to reduce ammonia emissions can be discussed with a better understanding of why and how they affect air quality.
Another Look at the Nursery: Financial Considerations
Posted in: Economics, Nutrition, Pork Insight Articles, Prairie Swine Centre, Production by admin on | No Comments
Farms differ in many ways, but the author suspects that the goals of the nursery are common throughout all commercial units and discusses how best to improve upon each goal:
• Maximize nursery exist weights, as a solid platform for the move to the grow out barn
• Minimize mortality
• Minimize the need for medical treatment
• Minimize feed costs, calculated as feed cost per kg gain and feed cost per pig
• Maximize uniformity
Sometimes, financial value can be assigned to a feeder pig leaving a nursery, even if it is not sold. A model of economic value for the feeder pig, within the context of the full production system, would be highly beneficial, because profits can clearly be made or lost within the nursery.
Surviving the Tough Times
Posted in: Economics, Pork Insight Articles, Prairie Swine Centre, Production by admin on | No Comments
This lecture offers a variety of methods for reducing cost of operation and increasing revenue.
A feed budget: Provides a foundation of expected performance. Actual measures of
performance can be measured and compared with the expectations. If there is a shortfall in performance, corrective action can be taken.
Seasonal diets: When seasons change, nutrient specifics should be reexamined, as hot weather diets are typically quite different from cold weather diets.
Split-sex feeding: Is not frequently practiced due to the practical challenge of delivering different diets. The savings are worth the effort. Barrows grow 8-10% faster than gilts. Gilts require diets 7-10% higher amino acid levels over barrows. Previous research at PSC shows that split sex and phase feeding combined increases net income by about $4.50 per pig.
Reformulating diets during volatile times in the market: Much of the benefit of phase feeding will be lost however if diets are not regularly reformulated to reflect current ingredient markets.
Hitting the core: A simple method developed at the Centre involves weighing all pigs at the first shipping day. All pigs in the correct weight are shipped that day, but by knowing the typical ADG, you can project forward one week and mark those pigs with a distinct colour that will be ready next week, and different from the colour markings on the pigs to be shipped this week. There are herds that have improved their ability to market only 70% in the core and increase this to 90%+ using this method.
Wet/dry feeders: Address the water wastage concern by incorporating a nipple drinker in the feed bowl as the only source of water, reducing water use by 30%, and slurry volume by 20-40%.
Exploring Opportunities in Using Alternative Feedstuffs
Posted in: Nutrition, Pork Insight Articles, Prairie Swine Centre by admin on | No Comments
The current market prices of pigs and protein sources have forced the pork industry to explore ways to reduce feed costs while maintaining swine performance. Inclusion of opportunity ingredients that are normally not considered for diet formulation may be one such method. Some opportunity ingredients and their proper inclusion into swine diets will be discussed in the following paper.
Meat and bone meal: This ingredient is fairly low cost making it a suitable replacement for soybean meal. However the use of animal byproducts is controversial and depending on its source meat and bone meal can have a wide variety of nutrient levels. To avoid reductions in growth and performance this can only be included for around 5-7.5% in the diet.
Field peas: The DE content of field peas is difficult to predict making it hard to incorporate into diets however they are high in protein and energy content, this combined with high palatability makes them worthwhile for inclusion in swine diets.
Lentils: The optimum inclusion rate of lentils has not been determined thoroughly; however, one trial indicated that diets containing 40% ground lentils supported similar growth to a soybean meal-based diet and some western Canadian research indicated that 30% lentils could be included in diets fed to grower-finisher pigs without hampering pig performance. The protein content of lentils is on average slightly higher than in field peas. Similar to other legume seeds, lentils have a low sulphur amino acid content, and care must be taken during diet formulation to ensure that enough methionine in the right ratio to cystine is provided in the diet.
Corn DDGS: Corn DOGS has a similar DE content than the originating corn. Corn DOGS is especially high in oil content, and the main reason for upper inclusion levels for corn DOGS in diets for grower finisher pigs to prevent reductions in carcass quality and growth performance. Pellet quality may also be reduced following inclusion of corn DOGS, especially in corn diets. Samples from corn DOGS should be analyzed carefully for colour. A yellow colour is indicative of proper drying whereas a dark brown colour is indicative of excessive heat during drying and therefore reduced availability of enclosed nutrients for swine.