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10
Better Pork
December 2016
Hog-feeding
science has
caught up
with the
capabilities
of computer-
managed
feeding gear,
a leading
researcher
says; it’s just a matter of taking the
research to commercial scale.
A pioneer of precision feeding
for finishing hogs over the past
10 years, Dr. Candido Pomar has
identified protein intake savings of
as much as 20 per cent in his lab at
Agriculture and Agri-Food Can-
ada’s (AAFC’s) research centre in
Sherbrooke, Que. Precision feeding
should mean significant savings
and management advantages for
hog farmers.
Pomar expects commercial
transfer of his finisher research
within two years. Precision feed-
ing for gestating sows will follow
quickly, he predicted in a recent
telephone interview from Sher-
brooke.
The lab uses custom-designed
feed-delivery systems at higher
than commercially viable costs. But
talks have begun with interested
manufacturers about barn-worthy
gear which, Pomar says, is “the
next step.”
Commercial-scale electronic
sow feeders (ESFs) have been avail-
able for years for gestating sows,
mainly to help solve competi-
tive conflicts over feed between
animals in groups. ESF equipment
also holds the promise of precision
feeding for sows, Pomar con-
firmed.
The key in both cases is to
identify individual pigs and meet
their individual requirements. It’s
a shift in thinking about livestock
management that makes use of
computer-controlled systems ca-
pable of measuring, recording and
deploying data.
Pomar and his colleagues have
conducted dozens of trials with
groups of finisher pigs to test the
theory’s various aspects. Pomar’s
AAFC profile cites 26 published
journal articles since 2009.
“The important thing is we
have to be able to feed each pig
differently,” he said. “So we have
to decide what this pig needs, this
day, and we have to have a feeder
that is able to do that.”
After developing mathematical
models and software to work the
Sherbrooke system, Pomar and his
colleagues have confirmed savings
in protein and phosphorus at the
rate of about 20 per cent.
“We are reducing the expensive
nutrients to the pig, so we can ex-
pect a reduction of between eight
and 10 per cent in feeding cost,”
Pomar said.
Spanish by origin, Pomar
received undergraduate training
in agricultural engineering at the
Technical University of Madrid. He
received an animal science doctor-
ate in 1989 from Laval University
in Quebec for his early precision-
feeding work. He is currently a
Laval associate professor.
The untimely death of re-
searcher Cornelis (Kees) de Lange
in August interrupted research at
the University of Guelph on the
precision feeding of gestating
sows. The research used modified
versions of commercially available
ESF gear from Canarm AgSystems,
an Ontario-based manufacturer.
Under de Lange’s supervision,
graduate student Robert “Quincy”
Buis completed a master’s thesis
this spring after conducting experi-
ments at the university’s Arkell lab.
Buis’s work demonstrated the
preliminary viability of precision
feeding among a small group of
first-pregnancy sows. A report of
his findings appears online under
the university’s research record.
Since Prof. de Lange’s death,
Buis has moved to private-sector
work in animal nutrition. The fate
of planned trials at Guelph for
second- and third-pregnancy sows
was unclear to Curtiss Littlejohn,
Canarm’s swine products manager,
during a recent interview. In early
October, university officials were
testing his company’s installed ESF
equipment to see whether they
would use it on the university’s
commercial herd, said Littlejohn,
who expects further research at
Guelph. He also said Canarm had
begun talks with Pomar about
developing new precision-feeding
equipment for finishing pigs.
Pomar is aware of at least one
other precision-feeding trial in
Quebec and of similar projects in
Europe and Brazil.
“In the past, we have been
developing our knowledge to feed
animals in groups,” he said. “When
we move from groups to individu-
als, we have to change the way we
Thepromiseof precision feeding
COMPUTERIZED
HOG
BARN
Candido Pomar
“The important thing is we have to be able
to feed each pig differently,”
says Candido Pomar.