Eye On Europe: Danes find that two-step nursing gives more live pigs weaned
Monday, December 10, 2007
Most at risk in large litters are the smallest members. Danish research suggests that moving them to a second litter after a few hours helps
by NORMAN DUNN
There's probably not a country in the world looking so hard for the best ways of fostering young piglets than Denmark. This is because Danish sows farrow from 12 to 13 liveborn piglets on average per litter and this performance is increasing steadily by 0.3 piglets every year.
"High sow output means that redistributing litters is becoming even more common," says Dr. Flemming Thorup of Danish Pig Production, the country's research organisation for this sector. "Most at risk in big litters are the very smallest members. We find the best overall performance comes from taking them away after they've had some colostrum at six to eight hours or thereabouts.
"The aim is to keep litter numbers to between 11 and 13 piglets so the foster sow's bigger piglets are moved onto a first or second litter sow that has a two to five day old litter. Her piglets in turn are passed on to a sow that has just weaned her litter at 21 days old."
For best results in this fostering routine, the first foster sow should always be first or second litter, according to Dr. Thorup. "They accept the new litter much better than older sows. Also, we've found that a sow at 21 days does not accept very young piglets so well, but is more successful with two to five day old ones. That's why we have introduced the two-step nursing system."
He points out that mortality tends to increase with larger litters, so the extra work in two-step fostering is repaid with more live pigs weaned. Average number of hogs produced per sow per year in Danish herds is now 25, with the top one quarter of herds producing just over 27.
One headache for farmers adopting two-step nursing is finding room for the second foster mother - the sow that has just been weaned and been given a new batch of piglets. On most farms, there's the choice of moving the foster piglets into the pen where the sow has reared her previous litter and thus risking problems of cross infection in the piglets - or of causing the sow stress by moving her out of her pen and into a new one.
Comparative trials by Dr. Thorup and his team (although this time with one-step foster sows getting 12-14 hour old piglets) indicated that saving the sow stress is probably the most important route to take. Where the piglets were moved to the sow in her familiar surroundings, nursing the newcomers seemed to get off to a much better start. By weaning time, the foster piglets were on average 400 grams heavier than piglets in the trial that had been fostered to sows moved to a new pen.
"There's no doubt that our sows can maintain 13 piglets per litter," stresses Dr Thorup. "Fostering is only relevant when litters are larger than this."
Dutch TV campaign aims to lure young workers back to the farm
Television films showing work in modern hog production farms, farm visits for young unemployed, special courses with a mix of schoolwork and on-farm training - these are just some of the initiatives launched by Dutch farmers and labour recruitment and training agencies to attract more young people into the hog sector.
Swine producers in the Netherlands see the situation as threatening. In the intensive swine production province of Limburg, it is reckoned that 300 new positions for skilled young hog workers are going unfilled every year. The reason: better wages away from the farm and, above all, jobs that are perceived as more attractive. Nowadays, complain farmers, even youngsters born and raised on the farm are clearing out the minute school is done.
Marcel Janssen from the job-training centre Karpos in Limburg is one of the officials now aiming to turn the tide and attract youngsters back into the sector. "Our aim is to emphasize that hog farming has interesting possibilities as a career," he told the Dutch magazine Varkens.
Farmers and government employment agencies in other provinces in the Netherlands are also launching recruitment programs. These include "job experience" courses where young unemployed or school leavers are paid to try a week or two on pig production units. In Limburg, a TV spot promotes a new image of hog production with light-flooded, well-ventilated buildings and high technology equipment including computer control in feeding and record keeping.
That a five-day working week is also possible is one of the main selling points. A regional job centre in Limburg has developed a training course with four and a half days work on selected hog farms and a half-day back at school to learn the theory of hog production. This course lasts one and a half years with a certificate and guaranteed job for the successful participants. Another attraction for the farmers involved is that the government rural employment agency pays all wages for the youngsters during training.
Wireless computer monitoring coming to British hog farms
A C$240,000 research project for developing wireless computer-based monitoring, recording and warning systems for hog housing has been launched at the British Chiltern University College by Farmex, one of the country's leading producers of computer control systems for hog farms.
After 12 years of installing systems for controlling feed and water supply and consumption as well as in-house temperatures, Farmex claims that customary cabling between computers and sensors is becoming increasingly expensive and complicated.
The company reckons that sensor communication without cabling is the way ahead and one that will save from 25 to 30 per cent in installation costs, as well as substantially simplifying systems.
"Wireless connectivity is the obvious next step, but there are difficulties to overcome because, in intensive livestock systems, there are many reflective surfaces and other barriers to reliable transmission," says Farmex managing director Hugh Crabtree.
His company hopes that a network system for wireless communications which could be retrofitted on existing hardware and sensors will overcome the problems and mean much cheaper installations. The network will probably comprise wireless "transceivers" attached to all hardware units offering several routes for impulses heading back to the main computer, with another route automatically taken if the first is interrupted.
Giving German consumers what they really want
Last year was a particularly hard one for most pork retailers in Germany. Despite prices being at a low level anyway, the major discounters in the country ran campaign after campaign with reduced prices to attract meat buyers into their stores.
The non-discount chains were fighting a rearguard action and losing market share. But one, Edeka Südwest, a group of franchised stores with 1,700 outlets, not only held its own in pork sales but actually increased business. And sales this year look even better.
The reason? A unique arrangement based on giving Edeka customers in the southwest of Germany exactly the kind of pork and pork products they want. Consumer surveys were used to identify the quality targets and the main ones were clear - drip loss, better colour, more intramuscular fat and, with that, improved taste.
Edeka Südwest had been running a quality pork program with contracted farmer-suppliers for a number of years before the company decided in 2005 to bring on another factor. It hired the international swine breeding organisation PIC to start DNA marker testing to identify terminal sires that would give a better guarantee that the right kind of meat would end up on the pork counter. The actual breeding had previously been worked out to meet consumers' taste in this part of Germany with a Pietrain terminal sire to ensure good intramuscular marbling and colour, and at least 12.5 per cent - sometimes as much as 25 per cent - Duroc in the mother line for this breed's high lean meat content.
"Through our testing with the DNA marker packet PICmarq™, we firstly identified top Pietrain boars for the traits," explains PIC's Ludger Thölking. Test slaughtering of the first offspring showed that drip loss had been slashed from around four per cent standard to two per cent and, with that, the meat gained in the other big selling points for Edeka - "bright colour and juicy taste."
Now, 92 per cent of the pork sold over Edeka Südwest counters comes from the offspring of these boars. The good news in 2007 is that quality has been improved even further in the first six months. Average drip loss has been reduced by another 10 per cent.
Not only breeding is supervised by Edeka Gutfleisch, but also the feed given to the hogs on the contract farms. This is subjected to independent test sampling for antibiotics or other medicaments.
The farmers were at first suspicious of using Pietrain boars selected especially for marbling. They pointed out that this route usually led to a drop in lean meat percentage. But the PIC package also takes care of this aspect and the selected sires have in fact improved in lean meat, with the June 2007 carcasses returning an average 0.5 per cent increase in lean meat percentage.
The program's success has encouraged PIC to present the integration of DNA marker controlled breeding schemes for high quality pork as a package on the market. "Lately, we've have been speaking with other supermarket chains in Germany about programs along the same lines for traceable production of pork with the qualities specified by consumers," says Ludger Thölking.
British hog farmers ask consumers to pay more for their pork
British hog producers have written open letters to the nation's pork eaters asking them to consider paying more for their sausages and chops. Starting shot for the campaign this fall was letter-writing to national newspapers calling for fair pricing by wholesalers and supermarkets and the backing of the nation's consumers. Wanted is the equivalent of an extra 66 Canadian cents per kilogram. A website campaign at www.britishpigsareworthit.com and an online petition will follow aimed at encouraging consumers to register their support.
Behind the campaign, say the farmers, is a doubling of feed prices in a single year, with feed now 59 per cent of hog production costs compared with 45 per cent in 2006. Just now, say the farmers, they are getting an average of C$2.18 per kilogram carcass weight from the slaughterhouses, while cost of production equals C$2.80 a kilo.
Despite a worldwide rise in feed costs, cost of production in Britain is still more than Denmark and the Netherlands, its major pork market competitors, mainly due to higher labour and building costs in Britain. Figures from the British Pig Executive (BPEX), a farmer-paid organisation for advising the sector, indicate that Danish production costs per kilogram of pork are around 13 per cent lower than Britain's and those of the Netherlands some 18 per cent lower. This makes Britain a top target for pigmeat exports with both countries major contributors to the net 606,000 tonnes imported in 2006 - 46 per cent of the country's total consumption.
BPEX general manager Barney Kay says that initial reaction from supermarkets and the public has been heartening, with a survey indicating more than 60 per cent of consumers willing to pay extra to help the home pork production industry survive the current high input cost squeeze. BP