A template for profitable hog production

Tuesday, October 2, 2012

A simple template that fits snugly over the hams of feeders when they're ready for slaughter helps hog feeders in the German Rhineland hit optimum carcass conformation without the hassle of routine weighing

by NORMAN DUNN

Last year, hog feeder Fritz Hagmann-Thomas achieved an average carcass weight for over 1,500 animals sent to slaughter of 95.2 kilograms with only 12 per cent of his hogs sliding over the 100-kilogram mark. He told the local farming paper, the Westfalen-Lippe Landwirtschaftliches Wochenblatt, that his target had been 95 kilograms and that he'd achieved his almost identical average without any regular weighing of his slaughter hogs.

Fritz's secret is an aluminum template recommended by his agricultural extension adviser. He simply climbs into the pens of finishers and runs the template along their backs, shoulder to tail. Naturally, the cross has to be considered and also the sex of the hog, explains this farmer. But, with that in mind, when the 33 centimetre inside width template fits more or less snugly over the hams, then the feeder is usually ready for slaughter in the coming week.

A number of farmers in the same area of Westphalia have adopted the ham template as a complete or part substitute for labour-intensive weighing. The template technique is based on the close relationship between ham weight, shape and carcass price, the ideal ham with the 118-kilogram liveweight Pietrain x hybrid feeder pigs popular in Germany being around 19 kilograms at slaughter.

Hams represent the heaviest single cut and around 45 per cent of the final price is based on this joint. So basing slaughter-readiness on this one joint makes a lot of sense, although the "stockperson's eye" still plays a big role and advisers warn that development of the rest of the hog should always be taken into account when using the template.  

Feeders using the template are urged to keep checking on their skill by doing spot weighings now and again. And advisers emphasize that grading results should be gone through very carefully and compared with the template results every week.

That said and done, the template is saving a heap of time on units where weighing sometimes used to occupy hours. Hagmann-Thomas sends away around 35 hogs a week from his unit and, with the template, needs between 30 and 45 minutes to sort out and mark the slaughter-ready animals.

Closer attention to end weight is being urged anyway, because slaughter houses are quick to penalize overweight animals. And despite all the propaganda and advice on this point, statistics from 2011 indicate that, with the conventional carcass weight range of 88 to 102 kilograms, 20 per cent of all hogs shipped to slaughterhouses in north Germany are still over the upper limit. Once feeders slip over that, extra costs start piling up. On average, according to Hagmann-Thomas' advisory group, an overweight hog costs the feeder around the equivalent of C$22.13, the difference between making a fair profit per head and maybe a loss.

After the 102-kilogram slaughter weight limit has been reached (approximately 127 kilograms liveweight at the loading ramp), the slaughterhouse typically charges a penalty of up to $12.30 and the farmer also foots a big bill for extra feed with each heavyweight hog typically slurping three to four kilograms daily while conversion rate slumps to around four kilograms feed for every one kilogram gain.

In 2011, Hagmann-Thomas's extension group of hog feeders finished almost 400,000 head with a record daily liveweight gain of 787 grams and average gross margin of $27.40. The right weight at slaughter is therefore crucial to every business. Many one-person units just don't have the time to run pigs over the scales every week, so it's little wonder that there's currently a long waiting list for ham templates.

Goal one: get the piglets eating solids!
Swine production advisers from the North-Rhine Westphalia Chamber of Agriculture are continuing their pre-starter campaign offering early access to solid feed for young piglets.

As ever, giving the young piglets a flying start in weight gain and vitality is a major aim. But the Westphalia experts also say early solid creep feed gives the suckling sow a break. too. It takes some of the pressure from big litters off her and this means she's in better condition at weaning, with the possibility of less associated fertility problems.

In Westphalia, week two of life is the latest when solid feed should be on offer, say Chamber of Agriculture advisers who published results this year after testing pre-starter feeds in 32 top piglet production farms (at least 25 weaned per sow/year).

Needed for best uptake from the young piglets, say the testers, is plenty of energy content from the start, ideally with crude fat at over 10 per cent plus supplementary carnitine to help energy digestion and a high content of dairy products, such as dried whey and skimmed milk powder. Such ingredients help the changeover from mother's milk, especially where the pre-started piglet has liquid milk replacer added to make an easily digestible mash. Protein sources, such as fishmeal and easily digested amino acids and minerals, have to be present in early creep feed, in addition to toasted soybean meal, potato protein and immunoprotein supplies from blood plasma and milk albumin.

Getting piglets used to grain in the ration is also important with an early creep, say the Westphalia advisers. But, for maximum acceptance, this part of the ration has to be processed for easier digestibility through heating, toasting, pressure or (increasingly nowadays) fermentation. Of the 32 high-performance piglet producers looked at in the Westphalia survey, 62 per cent added lactic acid bacteria to the prestarter creep mix, 59 per cent (almost always the same farmers) NSP enzymes, but only eight farmers thought immunoprotein additives such as blood plasma were worthwhile.

Pre-starter is notoriously expensive, so what are the costs to the farmers involved in this survey?  Fed over a two week period, the actual outlay ranged up to $0.26 per piglet with an average of $0.22.

Denmark looks at alternative breeds for gourmet pork
Danish genetics continue to offer the sort of swine performance that makes the Danbred hybrid one of the most popular in Europe. But the Danes have their eye on niche markets for pork, too. Offering good, high standard pork in a restaurant is one thing, but the ability to add an exotic touch such as "bacon from black Iberian swine" or "Hungarian curly-haired hog chops" jumps straight out of the menu and means at least a few dollars more can be safely charged.

That's the thinking behind a program started by Denmark's Meat Research Institute and the Universities of Aarhus and Copenhagen which is investigating the possibilities of producing high quality pork from alternative breeds.

A first step has been to take the standard Duroc x Landrace x Yorkshire hybrids and use the black Iberian or Alentejano and Hungarian curly-coated Mangalitza as terminal sires.

The Mangalitza from the Hungarian Puszta nowadays has its followers all over the world. But just like the black Iberian, famed for the quality cured hams it produces, they have developed over the centuries in extensive outdoor systems and cannot offer much in terms of piglet output per sow or feeder liveweight gain.

Still, with the gourmet market in mind, Danish scientists are comparing flavour, tenderness and texture of pork from their crosses compared with the standard Danbred hybrid production – all under commercial conditions. Meat texture from the exotic crosses has already been voted as generally better. Taste is also highly praised in first trials. Chemical and flavour analyses show the alternative swine crosses offers significant differences.

The metabolic profile of meat from the exotic crosses also gives a different picture from the norm. Scientists at the Danish Centre for Food and Agriculture say that these results indicate lower stress levels and probably explain at least some of the improved texture found in the resultant pork.

The experiences of farmers in Europe who have already aimed at niche markets with regionally sourced and processed pork products from old local breeds – and particularly wild pigs and their crosses – show that there are certainly plenty of customers out there with an appetite for tasty pork just a bit out of the ordinary.

It looks like the Danes will soon be tapping this market with a few new exotic types of pork, hopefully with added value in terms of at least some performance improvements from the Danbred side of the crosses.

Why most European piglet producers keep on docking
European Union legislation says tail docking of pigs can only be carried out as a measure to prevent tail biting in cases where other environmental measures have been unsuccessfully tried – for instance, straw or play objects in the pens. Or tails can be snipped off on veterinary grounds.

But there's plenty of evidence that the tails of the majority of feeding hogs in Europe are still routinely docked in the first few days of life. And a survey of two commercial feeding units in Thuringia, Germany, highlights why. The State Institute for Agriculture (TLL) there found that, compared with the figures for docked hogs, injuries and deaths increased by more than 10 per cent with undocked ones, mainly through tail biting.

What's more, the same survey indicated that losses were in no way reduced when more space was given to the feeders, or where attempts were made to reduce tail biting through the recommended methods of adding straw or playthings in the pens.

On one farm, the TLL followed the progress of 168 castrated males and 130 gilts, all undocked. In one pen of 12 castrates three weeks into the growing period, massive problems were reported with five of the hogs having to be removed with badly bitten tails. The situation got worse in the feeding period with 18 castrates and 15 gilts taken out of pens with bad tail injuries.

Despite play balls on offer, the trouble continued and, in the end, 70 per cent of all the hogs had bitten tails. Losses by slaughter time represented 16.3 per cent. The year-long mortality on the same farm when all pigs were docked soon after birth was under three per cent, reports the TLL.

On the second commercial farm, leaving tails undocked saw mortality rise to just over seven per cent during the growing/feeding periods. Here, 130 mixed-sex hogs were involved and, after five weeks in the feeding house, 15 of the animals had half their tails bitten off and eight had no tail left at all. The usual mortality with docked hogs in this unit had averaged two per cent for years. These results were despite more space being offered to the hogs with one to 1.2 square metres available per head and playthings also added to pens.

There wasn't a strong case against non-docking, though. Adding to the imponderables was the fact that aggression and tail biting on the second farm stopped suddenly in the second half of the feeding period for no apparent reason.

Still, the TLL researchers say they'd seen more than enough to realize that feeding hogs with undocked tails clearly adds significantly to the financial risks of slaughter hog production. BP