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Better Pork Featured Articles

Better Pork magazine is published bimonthly. After each edition is published, we share featured articles online.


A long ride is less stressful

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Shorter truck trips are more stressful to market hogs than longer truck rides, according to a study recently published in the Journal of Animal Science.

The reason? Pigs need time to recover from the stress of loading before they get stressed again when they disembark, says Prof. Michael Ellis, at the University of Illinois's Urbana-Champaign campus.

Another stress factor is floor space. Overcrowding is stressful, but pigs that have too much space are thrown around as the livestock truck moves. University researchers found that U.S. market pigs on average require five square feet each.

Co-author of the study with Ellis was Bradley Wolter, chief operating officer of the Maschhoffs packing company in Carlyle, Ill. Wolter says working with Ellis allowed the company to reduce pig losses due to transportation and handling by more than one percentage point in a system that was already well managed and where less than half a per cent of pigs died because of movement and handling. BP

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Manitoba providing tariff support for farmers

Wednesday, September 2, 2026

The Manitoba government is taking steps to assist farmers and other businesses affected by the ongoing trade war between Canada and the U.S. On Aug. 28 the provincial government announced more than $100 million in tariff supports. From an ag perspective, most of the supports come from... Read this article online

Irrimap Opens New Era of Smart Irrigation

Wednesday, September 2, 2026

Researchers at Lethbridge Polytechnic have introducedIrrimap, a new web-based tool designed to help farmers, agronomists, and researchers better understand crop water use. The platform measures evapotranspiration (ET), which combines evaporation from soil and water surfaces with... Read this article online

CGC issues two licenses to start September

Wednesday, September 2, 2026

Two grain companies started September by receiving licenses from the Canadian Grain Commission (CGC) One is from Saskatchewan. On Sept. 1, JGL Commodities received its primary elevator license for a facility in Marengo. This type of license goes to “an operator of an elevator which... Read this article online

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