Better Pork - February 2003Manitoba study shows micronization of feeds cuts down on manure, N and P
Meanwhile, Saskatchewan research is demonstrating that extruding flax and peas together can provide a highly nutritional feed product, high in omega-3 fatty acidsby BRUCE COCHRANE
A University of Manitoba study has shown that the micronization of feeds can dramatically reduce the volume of manure excreted by pigs and the levels of nitrogen and phosphorus in that manure.The 16-month study was conducted by the University of Manitoba in partnership with the Manitoba Livestock Manure Management Initiative and the Pulse Growers Association of Manitoba. The project involved a diet consisting of 45 per cent micronized peas, 50 per cent barley and vitamin and mineral supplements. Dr. Martin Nyachoti, an assistant professor of swine nutrition and management, says the moisture content of the peas was increased to about 25 per cent. Then they were heated to 110-115 o C in an infrared heating unit for about 15 seconds, altering the composition of the starch and the fibrous content of the peas.
"We included peas at 45 per cent in the diet and, overall, we got about a 20 per cent reduction in nitrogen excretion in the manure and 16 per cent in phosphorus," explains Nyachoti. "The overall dry matter digestibility increased because of the impact that micronization has on the processed feed stuff. Nitrogen and phosphorus were better utilized. They were made available because the feed generally was more digestible than it normally would be."
Nyachoti says researchers now hope to conduct some large-scale studies, based on these results, in order to analyze the economics of the micronization process.
Researchers at the University of Saskatchewan also plan to examine the nutritional aspects of feedstuffs manufactured through the extrusion of a mixture of peas and flax. Extrusion is a high-pressure, high-temperature process which basically shears the flax and peas, releasing all the oil while destroying any anti-nutritional factors. There's already a product on the market based on an extruded mixture of 50 per cent flax and 50 per cent peas. That product is being widely used in pig and poultry rations and the Department of Animal and Poultry Science wants to learn more about this type of product.
Researcher Dr. Murray Drew, says extruding the two ingredients together creates a highly nutritional feed product. "The problem with just extruding flax is that flax is approximately 40 per cent oil. If we just extruded the flax, we would end up with an oily mess," he explains.
Drew says peas absorb the oil and stabilize it so that it is not oxidized for a very long time. The feedstuff is very high in omega-3 fatty acids, which are known to have positive effects on health and immunity in animals.
"The big potential for the swine industry, I believe, is in feeding sows. The advantage is that the sows will get the omega-3 fatty acids from this product, which potentially gives them an immune benefit that they can pass on to the pigs. So you're looking at maybe increased survivability of the pigs and improved immune status of the piglets."
Dr. Drew suggests the real potential lies in the fact that this product provides a benefit not only for animals but also for humans. That's because it improves the nutrient quality of the pork, so people are going to get pork with higher omega-3 fatty acids that will be more nutritious and healthier.
Alberta plans odour control manual for livestock producers
Alberta's Odour Control Team is launching a three-year project to determine which strategies livestock producers are using to control odour and to evaluate those options. The Odour Control Team includes representatives of Alberta Agriculture, Food and Rural Development, the University of Alberta and Alberta Research Council engineers and scientists.The range of odour control options includes straw or geotech manure storage covers, manure additives, feed additives, diet manipulation, biofilters and others. Odour control specialist Ike Edeogu says the team will survey producers to determine which technologies they are adopting and then it will assess the effectiveness of those technologies.
"On an individual producer basis, we don't really know how many of them are actually starting to say yes to odour control technologies," Edeogu explains. "There's technology all over the place -- in Europe, North America, Australia," he notes. "But we can't just bring technology into the province and say, 'Here's a biofilter, these are the design specs from Europe, go ahead build yourself one and you'll get 95 per cent odor reduction right away.' We feel that we've got to set up these same biofilters ourselves, run them, do our own evaluation, and define the specifications or operational parameters, maintenance and cost."
Edeogu plans to pass the information on to livestock operators in the form of an odour control manual. He says the information will allow producers to make well-informed economic decisions as they develop their own plans for odour control.
Oil industry gas monitor proves effective in swine barns
The February 2002 issue of Better Pork reported on a research project involving a hydrogen sulfide gas monitor, manufactured for use in the oil patch. Now it's been shown to be an effective tool for monitoring hydrogen sulphide exposure among workers in the swine barn.When the study was launched Draeger Safety Equipment, the manufacturer, wanted to know how the monitors would perform in the hostile conditions of the pig barn. Sixteen monitors were used in the study. Four remained in the office as a control, while 12 were used to monitor hydrogen sulphide from a specific height and four were dropped into manure for a specified duration.
Engineering researcher Dr. Stephane Lemay says the Draeger monitors performed quite well. "When we looked at the measurements, the average accuracy varied from 0.6 to two ppm after one year of exposure. The absolute maximum drift was three ppm."
"Basically, we conclude that the monitors would be an effective tool for measuring hydrogen sulphide in the barn. At the same time, based on what we have seen in terms of measurements, if we were to calibrate the monitor every six months, this would normally provide a good accuracy to be able to protect the worker in the barn environment."
Bulk of swine barn expenditures stay in the community
Another Prairie Swine Centre research project demonstrated that most of the money spent operating a modern swine barn stays within the local community.The study was conducted at the Prairie Swine Centre's 600-sow farrow-to-finish research facility at Elstow, Sask. The research barn, which employs a manager and a staff of four, is designed to operate along the lines of a commercial facility so as to ensure the relevance of its research the industry. Dr. John Patience, the centre's president, says the study examined expenditures within the immediate Rural Municipality (RM), within surrounding (RMs), within one hour's drive, within two hours drive, within the province, within the region and within Canada.
His team looked at all of the facility's cash expenditures for the last fiscal year to determine where they were spent geographically. Multiplier effects weren't considered. "We just looked strictly at the direct dollar of expenditure," Patience notes.
"Seventy per cent of the expenditures made -- strictly on the commercial side and not including the research component -- was spent within one hour's drive of the barn. Eighty per cent was spent within the province of Saskatchewan. Very close to 100 per cent was spent in Canada, but there was obviously some expenditures made in the United States as well."
Patience says the geographical distribution of expenditures will depend on the services available in the community in which the barn is built. However, he says, "when you consider that the bulk of expenditures relate to feed and labour, which are generally available locally, a significant portion of expenditures would be made in the local communities."BP
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Breeding company says Meishan pigs don't suit Ontario
When Woodstock producer Gerry Huinink had the chance to work on a research and development project with these Chinese-bred pigs, he jumped at the opportunity. But he found that prolificacy comes at a costby DON STONEMAN
For pork producers continually trying to get more pigs per sow, the prolificacy gene found in Chinese Meishan pigs sounds like a dream. Even another pig per sow seems like a lot, says Woodstock producer Gerry Huinink.
That's why Huinink jumped at the chance to work with Genex Swine Group Inc. on a research and development project when he refurbished and repopulated his sow barn in the fall on 1998. More than four years later, only a few of his Meishan bred sows are left.
Genex is marketing its Meishan line in Western Canada, but has now decided to halt the breed's development in Ontario and Quebec. The extra pigs are there but, by the time they get to market, feed costs are higher along with days to market. The cost likely isn't worth it in Ontario where feed costs are higher than in the West, say officials at Genex, based in Regina.
Meishan genetics increase prolificacy by a significant amount. However, the Chinese-bred pigs don't get to market as quickly as more traditionally bred pigs, and indexes may be uneven.
Chuck Fiss, director of product development for Genex, says that in a large barn test on the Prairies sows averaged more than 13 pigs born live per litter. At 2.4 litters per year, the weaned average was 27 per year. Fiss says that was in a group of 521 first-parity, 260 second-parity and 80 third-parity records.
Fiss describes the Meishan sow as "the ideal mother. They are the Holsteins of the pig business. They milk well." But the biggest problem with the Meishan is the end product, Fiss says. The Meishan line that Genex has produces "an acceptable carcass, but it is not the top carcass." Furthermore, there is a broader variation in carcasses from Meishan-cross sows. "That is likely the biggest downfall of the product," Fiss said.
On the way to market, growth ranged past 800 grams per day. Feed conversion was between 2.8 and 3. As a general rule, says Fiss, the growth was very similar to non-Meishan Genex lines. Days to market will be similar "but a little bit slower," Fiss noted. Put in the same pen as other crossbred pigs, the Meishans "will not be as aggressive...They will be the last to leave the barn."
When it comes to profitability, Fiss said the higher number of pigs and lower quality is a two-edged sword as well. When feed prices are high, they don't help the bottom line.
When all the factors are put together, there is a "steeper profit curve" with Meishans as the female stock in a farrow-to-finish operation. "If you are making money with every pig you sell, you are making more money" with Meishans, Fiss says. "If you are losing money on every pig, you sell you are losing more."
The Huinink research project compared 50 Meishans with 50 Genex conventional sows. While he has culled many of his Meishans, some are still putting out babies. Longevity was not among their shortcomings, Huinink notes.
The Meishans were not easy to deal with. "Sows in stalls are very aggressive," Huinink says. To avoid getting hurt, he has to use a long pole with a hook to remove dead piglets and afterbirth. With the feeder pigs, Huinink says there was "tail and flank biting. They were aggressive with each other. We thought it was the new concrete (in a new barn), but it never stopped."
With aggression in the barn, "it was hard to get 185 days to market," Huinink says. He has been able to achieve 165 days to market with other breeds in his canvas-topped hoop shelters.
There are currently no herds in eastern Canada using Genex's Meishan genetics. Along with Huinink in Ontario, Genex had arranged with two herds in Quebec to do research and development projects. Genex key account manager Eric Aubin says neither arrangement worked out. One herd in Quebec developed Mycoplasma Pneumonia and Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome (PRRS). He says results at another Quebec operation were skewed by management changes.
For now, Aubin says, Genex's Meishans will remain on the Prairies, where results have been good and where a consistent supply of cheap feed is available. BP
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back Which biosecurity measures really work?
Making sure you have the right mindset and are able to separate myth from scientific reality are essential if you are going to protect your herd properlyby S. ERNEST SANFORD
Biosecurity has been an ever-increasing component of pig rearing of late. In just the last few years, repeated outbreaks of hog cholera in several western European and Asian countries in the late 1990s, foot-and-mouth disease in the United Kingdom and other parts of western Europe in 2001 and terrorist attacks in the United States followed by the anthrax scare have all raised concerns on this front.For several decades, the poultry and pig sectors have paid increasing attention to biosecurity measures to maintain the health of their stock. Now the events cited above have forced other livestock sectors into greater awareness.
Biosecurity can be defined as "the part of animal husbandry that focuses on maintaining or improving the health status of a herd and preventing the introduction of new disease agents into it."
Down on the farm, part of its implementation consists of establishing physical barriers, installing showers, and developing written protocols and logbooks for recording downtimes and recent exposure to pigs for people entering the farm. More than anything else, however, biosecurity is a mindset which must be adopted by everyone involved. Biosecurity is an unforgiving master. To paraphrase a quote "You can do everything right and slip up in just one tiny area, and you would have failed in the whole."
Biosecurity is implemented by applying science against potential risks so that the negative consequences of an unwanted invasion can be eliminated or minimized. Unwashed trucks, pigs, birds, pets and rodents all represent known risks. We need also to keep in mind the temptation to cut corners.
Dr. Sandra Amass and her team at Purdue University in Indiana have been applying scientific methods to test several of our long-held traditions and beliefs and concepts on biosecurity. Applying science to test these concepts allows us to measure more precisely what really works. Not knowing this means that producers run one of two risks. They can spend time and money on unnecessary biosecurity measures. And they may use inadequate biosecurity measures that place the whole pig population at risk.
The following are two routinely used biosecurity measures that Dr. Amass' team has scrutinized scientifically.
Boot baths. Boot baths can be found on virtually every pig farm. But how well do they work? Dr. Amass' research found that only after scrubbing visible manure from boots did boot baths filled with any of several disinfectants tested significantly reduce bacterial counts. Standing for up to two minutes without first scrubbing the manure off did not significantly reduce bacteria. Scrubbing the visible manure off boots in a clean water bath (with no disinfectants in the water) was as effective as scrubbing manure off in a bath with disinfectant.
People and vectors. In their studies, Dr. Amass' group was unable to transmit PRRS virus from pigs with acute PRRS to uninfected pigs. They did, however, find Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome (PRRS) virus using a polymerase chain reaction PCR test on two of 10 people after they had handled the PRRS-infected pigs.
This means that, although the researchers were unable to transmit the virus from one group of pigs to another, the potential to do so was certainly present. On the other hand, Drs. Satoshi Otake and Scott Dee at the University of Minnesota were able to transfer PRRS virus from pigs with acute PRRS to naïve pigs by people after they had handled the PRRS-infected pigs. They also demonstrated that PRRS was transmitted by PRRS-contaminated boots and coveralls worn by the same persons. Their research further showed that simply changing into new boots and coveralls, and washing hands with soap and water, prevented the transmission of the virus.
Once we have satisfactorily proved which biosecurity procedures are truly effective, it then incumbent on producers and veterinarians to develop protocols that are in line with the risks to the herd.
Keep in mind that removal of visible manure is central to all biosecurity efforts, whether the contamination is on the surface of boots, clothing, truck tires or skin. BP
S. Ernest Sanford, DVM, Dip. Path., Diplomate ACVP, is a swine specialist with Boehringer Ingelheim Vetmedica (Canada) Ltd. in Burlington.
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