Lentils Shown Effective in Weanling Pig Diets

Posted in: Pork Insight Articles, Swine Innovation by admin on October 14, 2011 | No Comments

On October 14th 2011, on farmscape.ca radio, Dr. Ruurd Zijlstra of the University of Alberta discussed the effects of lentils in diets:

Due to excess lentils after the 2010 harvest, tests were carried out by the University of Alberta to see the effectiveness of lentils in weanling pig diets. Results show that a diet with up to 20% lentils had no negative effect on pig performance. Lentils are members of legume family meaning the have very high protein and energy levels but have anti-nutritional factors like phytic acids.

“So we basically wanted to have a look at how pigs would react to switching the nutritional profile and make sure that there were no negative responses relative to the anti-nutritional factors”.

To hear the interview click here: Lentils Shown Effective in Weanling Pig Diets

Lentils Shown to Be Good Protein Source for Weanling Pigs

Posted in: Pork Insight Articles, Swine Innovation by admin on September 26, 2011 | No Comments

On September 26th 2011, on farmscape.ca radio, Dr. Ruurd Zijlstra of the University of Alberta discussed the effects of lentils in diets:

Due to excess lentils after the 2010 harvest, tests were carried out by the University of Alberta to see the effectiveness of lentils in weanling pig diets. Results show that a diet with up to 20% lentils had no negative effect on pig performance. Researchers found that the pigs enjoyed eating lentils so there was no change in feed intake. Further testing found that pigs on a diet with 22.5% lentils had no change in average daily gain or feed efficiency, but when pigs were fed a diet that consisted of 30% lentils there was slight negative effects on average daily gain and feed efficiency. This led to belief that the appropriate percentage of lentils in a diet is around the low to mid twenties.

To listen to the interview click here: Lentils Shown to Be Good Protein Source for Weanling

Agent-based simulation framework for virtual prototyping of advanced livestock precision feeding systems

Posted in: Pork Insight Articles, Swine Innovation by admin on June 11, 2011 | No Comments

Running a virtual prototype experiment to test precision feeding systems can achieve instant results for low costs. An agent based model makes it possible to evaluate, design and test a precision feeding system while avoiding investment in physical construction. Each component of a virtual feeding system is made into its own software that has parameters, each piece of software is considered an agent. Each agent has its own limitations and can communicate and make requests from other agents by a high-level agent communication language. All the agents are combined in a multi-unit system which simulates the presision feeding system as a whole. The multiple agents collaborating and communicating together make up the operational capacity of the virtual prototype. Understanding parameters and workload capacity of the simulation model helps understand the workload capabilities of the real system and can help design the new feeding system. Agent based model allows for design alterations to be preformed and potentially put into practice in the real mechanism if proven to work. It is possible to evaluate testing immediately after a system has been built avoiding lag and time investment involved with physical testing, this is an advantage of the virtual system.

Effectiveness of non-penetrating captive bolt (Zephyr) and restraint for euthanasia of piglets from birth to 9 kg

Posted in: Pork Insight Articles, Swine Innovation by admin on March 11, 2011 | No Comments

This study set out to test the effectiveness of a non captive penetrating bolt gun. The study consisted of two test, the first involving 100 piglets who were less than 72 hours old. After being stunned the pigs were analyzed for breathing, heart beat, leg spasms and other signs to rate effectiveness. 10 pigs were further assessed to investigate the skull fracture and brain hemorrhage. All the pigs were rendered insensible, leg spams lasted for an average of 229 seconds, and time to full cardiac arrest was 444 seconds. Five piglets had to receive a second treatment as they has a sustained heartbeat for over 10 minutes. The second test involved 5 pigs each in four different weight classes. The pigs were put on  a collection of medications to minimize there pain. Only one pig required a second treatment because of rhythmic breathing, all other pigs were absent of breathing immediately. Leg spasms lasted 148 second and full cardiac arrest was reached in 371 seconds. One pig had be euthanized using an alternative method because of a sustained heartbeat. Although brain damage in the anesthetized piglets was less severe than that of the conscious neonates, the Zephyr still effectively induced cardiac arrest in all but one piglet.

Swine Liquid Feeding Research Update

Posted in: Nutrition, Pork Insight Articles, Swine Innovation, Uncategorized by admin on February 22, 2011 | No Comments

The Swine Liquid Feeding Association annual research update provides progress reports on three projects they are currently working on. The first project, Emulsifiers for liquid feed involves various ingredient additives and processing techniques that can be used to increase the time it takes for corn to separate from the liquid it is suspended in. The second study Microbes for delivery of epidermal growth factor looks at the potential of additives to liquid feed to improve gut health and growth of weaner pigs. Epidermal growth factor (EGF) was added to feed along with lactococcus lactis (LL) which enhances the effect of EGF. There was proven growth when tested on mice and improved gut health in pigs. Currently when the diet was applied to pigs there was no improvement in growth. The third study Increasing nutritional value of co-products attempts to improve the digestibility of DDGS and wheat shorts by adding microbial inoculants and enzymes. The study has so far found that enzymes improve the nutrient release of DDGS, enzymes and microbial inoculants improve positive fermentation of steeped DDGS, and both additives improve body weight gain without compromising meat quality.  

The Impact Of Inexpensive Nursery Pig Diets On Grower/Finisher Performance and Carcass Quality

Posted in: Pork Insight Articles, Swine Innovation by admin on January 25, 2011 | No Comments

The relationship between nursery growth performance and grow-finish growth performance has been said to be important but others have said there is no relationship. Traditionally it is assumed that nursery growth performance impacts a pig for its entire life, but recent studies suggest that reduced nursery performance from poor diets does not impact overall growth performance. A study using 96 pigs was conducted to prove the impact of the nursery diet. Pigs were put on one of four diets: complex (C; highly digestible ingredients) or simple (S; corn and soybean meal) with (A+) or without (A-) in-feed antibiotics. Pigs body weight, feed intake and feed efficiency were regularly recorded. Results show that feeding low complexity, and antibiotic-free feed compromises growth performance in the starter phase but induces compensatory growth afterwards and there are no long term effects into the grow-finish phase. Also days to market and carcass quality are not compromised. There is potential to reduce the complexity of starter feed, hence saving money, while still maintaining normal growth and carcass quality.

Formulating diets for growing pigs: economic and environmental considerations

Posted in: Nutrition, Pork Insight Articles, Swine Innovation by admin on October 22, 2009 | No Comments

Traditionally a pig’s diets is created based on two pieces of criteria, growth and cost. A diet that focuses on maximizing growth and minimizing  costs overlooks some externalities such as environmental impacts. Nitrogen and phosphorus are two nutrients implemented in a pigs diet to enhance growth, although excessive amounts of these two nutrients in a diet will cause more of the nutrients to go undigested and excreted by the pig. When manure is disposed the excreted phosphorus and nitrogen build up in soils resulting in pollution of surface and ground water. This paper proposes a linear model which considers environmental impacts as well as economic impacts with the intentions of helping hog farmers and mill operators develop cost effective pig diets while not harming the environment. The authors developed a multi-criteria model that considers minimum nitrogen and phosphorus excretion and minimum costs. The models were based off real world diets and costs from Quebec and France and then compared. After making the comparisons the results showed that it is possible to limit the amount of harmful nutrients excreted while still keeping costs down. This information has value to producers, mill operators and also policy makers who can set limitations or incentives to help protect the environment from soil saturation.

Improving Production Efficiency in a Competitive Industry

Posted in: Pork Insight Articles, Swine Innovation by admin on January 10, 2009 | No Comments

This paper takes an in-depth look at how to improve production efficiency in hog operations by improving sow management practices and genetic management. Three different areas are looked at and shown how improvements can increase production efficiency. The first area covered is sow and guilt management. Currently about half of sows are culled while only producing about 30-40 piglets in their life time, furthermore about 20% of sows are culled while not even giving birth. Better selection of gilts is one way to improve this, selecting gilts based on weight has proven to be a more effective strategy than based on age.  Improving guilt and sow management practices can have great benefits to an operations efficiency if attention is paid to all the small details. Some targets that should be the goal of any operation are: greater than 86% farrowing rates, greater than 12.5 total piglets born, greater than 70% of gilts served farrowing the 3rd litter, and 50 pigs weaned lifetime. The second topic focuses on the variability in grow-finish performance that can be linked back to birth weight. It is stated that growth rate after birth has already been pre-programmed before the pig is even born, this becomes most evident in the grow finish stage. Sorting pigs in the nursery and grow stage will not resolve variation in growth performance , it is still a characteristic of individual pigs and litters. The paper argues that recognizing and managing differences in birth weight and post natal growth between litters has the potential to cut costs in the immediate future. The third topic covered was the need to improve the genetic impact of elite sires. The overall production efficiency of the herd is dependent on the reproductive capacity of the boars used for mating, and the genetic merit of those boars. Because the pork industry will use one boar to breed hundreds of sows, if that boar has poor genetics it will impact thousands of pigs. Better management of genetic factors have the ability to improve overall production efficiency and help producers become more competitive.