Sask Pork Announces $215,000 towards the Interpretive Centre

Posted in: Prairie Swine Centre by admin on January 1, 2001 | No Comments

Thermoregulation of the nursery by early-weaned piglets through operant conditioning

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Regardless of its effect on the health and productivity of growing swine, thermoregulation is an area with little data for producers to rely on, especially in the case of early weaned piglets. It is up to the producer to choose a setpoint temperature for the barn environment. With little or no access to thermal requirements of early weaned piglets, producers must make a decision based on thermal preferences of grow finish pigs. Because of this lack of information, a study was designed to inform producers of the optimal temperature for early weaned piglets in which the piglets would control their own thermal environment. With the use of operant conditioning, piglets controlled the temperature through a lever placed in one of the nursery pens. When the lever was hit, an infrared heat lamp would turn on above the piglets in addition to the room gas heater. Room temperature was monitored every 5 minutes and averaged to find temperature preferences. Results show that as age increases, average preferred temperature decreases by approximately 1A?A?C/week for early weaned piglets. The temperatures ranged between 22A?A?C and 29A?A?C each week and reflected a circadian sinusoidal pattern in which the piglets preferred higher temperatures during the day and lower temperatures at night. Results from this study agree with trends found in studies done in grow finish hogs and provides the information hog producers need to consider for more fuel efficient ways of monitoring the thermal environment of early weaned piglets

Greenhouse gas and odour emissions from swine operations in Quebec and Saskatchewan: Benchmark assessments

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It is estimated that agriculture contributes about 10% of the total anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in Canada. About 40% of the agricultural emissions of GHG originate from livestock production. However, there exists a lot of uncertainty relative to the actual GHG emissions from livestock production systems in Canada since many of those estimates have been based on data collected in other parts of the world. In addition to GHG, odour emissions from production buildings and manure storage facilities often constitute an important source nuisances in livestock production, especially in the pig industry.

The general objective of this ongoing research project (January 2001 a

Effect of Dietary Enzyme on Barley Energy Digestability

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Motivating Employees

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The impact of feeder adjustment and group size/density on weanling pig performance

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An experiment was conducted to examine the impact of group size/density and feeder adjustment on the performance of weanling pigs. Providing more floor space resulted in increased body weight at 10 weeks of age. Performance was maximized when the feeder gap allowed for 40% of the trough to be covered with feed. Moreover, proper adjustment of the feeder reduced the time spent eating and thus increased feeder capacity.

Dietary protein and fermentable fiber affect nitrogen excretion

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Nitrogen excretion is of concern because of its potential impact on the environment inside and outside the barn. The effects of reducing dietary protein content and inclusion of dietary fermentable fibre sources on reducing urinary nitrogen excretion were additive, together resulting in a 55% reduction. Urinary nitrogen excretion could be predicted from plasma urea (PU) concentration.

Effect of enzyme supplementation to wheat-canola meal diets on performance and nitrogen balance of grower pigs

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Optimization of Oil Sprinkling System Using Undiluted Canola Oil

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Current Engineering Projects at Prairie Swine Centre Inc.

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New engineering projects have begun in 2001 and many ongoing studies will come to completion over the course of 2002. Considering the stage of those experiments, no final analysis can be discussed yet. This paper presents an overview of current engineering research activities at PSCI by providing a brief description of each project.