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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:
THE FUTURE OF SOW HOUSING: STALLS OR GROUPS
Posted in: Nutrition, Pork Insight Articles, Prairie Swine Centre old, Welfare by admin on July 6, 2017 | No Comments
One of the more controversial aspects of pig production is the housing of gestating sows. Gestation stalls have been identified as one of the three most restrictive practices, along with battery cages for hens and crates for veal calves, throughout the history of the modern animal welfare movement.
This speech outlines pros and cons of four different group housing systems:
- Floor feeding
- Low cost
- High space requirement
- Increased agression
- Trickle/Bio-Box feeding
- Lowered aggression
- Moderate space requirements
- High cost
- Individual feed stalls
- Meets individuals nutritional needs well
- Increased labour costs but decreased space and input
- minimal agression
- ESF
- Greatest control of feed intake
- Ability to monitor animals intake directly over time
- High cost
- additional training
ADDRESSING CONSUMER CONCERNS: ANIMAL WELFARE AND THE SWINE INDUSTRY
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The scientific understanding and measurement of animal welfare is no longer limited to production parameters but also includes the physical, environmental, nutritional, behavioral and social needs of the animal or groups of animals under the care, supervision or influence of people. Addressing these needs should decrease stress (a good thing for animals) and improve performance (a good thing for producers.)
The public has started to demand public assurances (guidelines, certifications, audits) that producers are raising animals in an acceptable manner. The purpose of this presentation is to provide an overview of some of the recent programs that have been developed in the United States to provide public assurance about animal welfare .
VARIATION IN PIG PERFORMANCE: A CHECKLIST TO IMPROVE PERFORMANCE
Posted in: Meat Quality, Nutrition, Pork Insight Articles, Prairie Swine Centre, Production by admin on | No Comments
Variation in bodyweight has a large impact on the profitability of pork production in western Canada.
Variation is measured as either standard deviation or coefficient of variation.
Reasonable targets for CV are 20% of weaning weights, 12 to 15% for nursery exit weights and I 0 to 12% for weight at first pull from the finishing barn.
The number of animals that must be weighed in order to accumtely estimate CV is greater than that required to estimate the avemge weight.
More animals must be weighed at younger ages, because variation as a proportion of the mean is much higher.
If the CV for bodyweight in the feeder barn is above I 5%, reducing it is a reasonable possibility, and probably includes increasing access to feed and water and addressing health problems. if present.
If the CV in growout is less than 12%. then the best strategy is to management variability, as reducing it will be very difficult.
ADDRESSING VARIATION IN FEED QUALITY: WHAT TO DO WHEN FEED QUALITY DECLINES
Posted in: Economics, Nutrition, Pork Insight Articles by admin on July 5, 2017 | No Comments
Variation in ingredient quality has become increasingly important for the pork industry, because minimizing the differences between actual and calculated quality of finished feed helps to achieve a predictable performance. Diets are formulated using least cost diet formulation, and safety margins have been included to guarantee minimum dietary nutrient levels. These margins could be reduced if ingredient quality is monitored properly. Analyses or predictions of nutrients with the greatest impact on diet cost or performance (energy, amino acids) is the most effective way to manage variation in ingredient quality, and will likely provide a high return on investment.
Focus on the future conference schedule 2003
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This document outlines the speeches that were held at the 2003 Focus on Future conference.
Farm animal welfare in a world of changing expectations
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Cultural attitudes toward animals have been changing rapidly during the past 50 years. These changes have culminated in some remarkable and very recent developments in farm animal welfare. In the United States, guidelines and audit procedures, designed to assure consumers that animal welfare standards are being met, are currently being introduced by chain restaurants and other major players in the food industry. The European Union has agreed to implement major changes in production methods including phasing out the battery cage for laying hens and the gestation stall for pregnant sows. To prepare for such changes, the animal industries need certain services and resources to be in place: ( 1) research, development and expertise to ensure that acceptable methods are accessible and well tested, (2) economic conditions that favor the timely adoption of such methods, (3) a regulatory environment adequate to encourage appropriate changes and to assure the public that key concerns are being met, and ( 4) organizational leadership and infrastructure to help the animal industries anticipate and prepare for emerging issues. The animal industries need to act promptly to ensure that these services are in place, in order to promote a smooth transition to production standards and methods that will meet changing expectations.
The Pork Industry, Production and Financial Models
Posted in: Economics, Pork Insight Articles by admin on | No Comments
This presentation discusses issues and challenges to the pork industry focusing on the balancing of costs and benefits. Limitations of the animals and industry are concerns for this speaker.
Focus on Environmental Issues and Challenges
Posted in: Economics, Environment, Pork Insight Articles by admin on | No Comments
This presentation outlines manure management, pork supply & demand, welfare, importing & exporting and how these topics relate to environmental impact.
View to the Future Symposium. Issues & Challenges: A Global Perspective
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This presentation outlines statistics related to the import and export of pork and how disease affects these trends.
Tallow and Energy for Grow-Finish Pigs -Monograph
Posted in: Meat Quality, Nutrition, Pork Insight Articles, Prairie Swine Centre, Uncategorized by admin on | No Comments
This experiment was conducted as a follow-up to a previous experiment conducted at the Prairie Swine Centre, which showed that pigs are able to achieve equivalent performance across diets of quite differing energy concentration. These results flew in the face of conventional wisdom, which suggests that increasing dietary energy concentration, notably through the additional of fat, will result in faster growth. This experiment was therefore conducted to re-evaluate this question, and determine if increasing dietary energy concentration would improve pig performance. The experiment was also designed to evaluate the impact of dietary energy concentration on carcass quality and on the uniformity of growth.
The results of this experiment, conducted on a commercial piggery, confirmed that higher energy diets
can be successfully fed without an adverse effect of carcass quality. Despite the fact that the DE content
of the diet increased by 10%, there was no impact on backfat thickness, lean yield or carcass index.
Indeed, the higher energy diet tended to increase loin thickness. Based on performance, carcass quality and financial return, the lower energy feeding program was once again equal to, or superior to, the higher energy programs. In this experiment, the same energy level was fed throughout; it would appear from the data that the most effective feeding program would be one that employs higher energy levels in the growing and early finishing phases, perhaps up to 80 kg, with lower energy levels used thereafter. This would take advantage of the improved growth on the higher energy diets observed during the first 6 weeks in this experiment, and save money by lowering energy during the final phase of growout, when energy did not elicit a growth response. Since 56% of the feed consumed by pigs on this experiment occurred beyond 80 kg bodyweight, substantial savings could accrue from feeding the lower energy diets after 80 kg.