Eye On Europe: Health passports precede piglets from breeder to feeding unit

Friday, October 10, 2008

In Germany, veterinarians, hog breeders and feeders co-operate to ensure that the health history and feeding information of weaners are faxed ahead of them when they travel

by NORMAN DUNN

German swine producers have developed a voluntary hog health passport system for better control of disease in feeding units.

The "passport" is filled out by the farm veterinary when a batch of weaners is shipped to a separate feeding unit and is signed by both the vet and the farmer involved. Most of the schemes also allow for details of weaner feed rations, feeding system and even type of pen to be filled in, too.

The health passport is especially welcome in Germany, a country where more than 50 per cent of weaners are produced by specialized breeders and then sold on to independent feeders, sometimes in other parts of the country.

Passport details are usually faxed to the feeding unit three to five days before the weaners actually arrive. "This gives the feeder and his veterinary time to discuss and plan any special treatments or feed alterations," explains a vet.

But what specific details are included in the passport? The system introduced by weaner supply group Oldenburg Quality Livestock Production Society (EZG) in northwest Germany, whose members produce or import 180,000 weaners annually, requires that all participating sow herds be regularly blood tested and cleared for salmonella. The sows are also checked for diseases such as PRRS and mycoplasma infection. Evidence that appropriate vaccinations have been carried out for these and other important diseases is also required.

Piglet batches ready for shipment are examined for a range of infections, including PRRS, mycoplasma, swine dysentery and mange and a full report goes into the passport, along with details of vaccinations and worming.

But that's not all. Information on feed and feeding systems already used with the young hogs is included because these can help the feeding manager adjust rations to avoid any big changes which might unsettle the hogs in their new barn.

In the southwest of Germany, a similar scheme covers some 1.6 million weaners per year.  

Farmers working with the passport system agree that it offers a new concept of transparency with more control over transmission of salmonella and other important pathogens. It has also brought a higher degree of discipline in the routine of swine health inspections by farmers and veterinarians. The results include health benefits which are already producing better returns for all involved.

Hog manure helps pork production survive
British entrepreneur Martin Barker wants to form a "green circle" in hog meat production with the process supported by biogas energy sales and even payments for carbon emission reductions. Barker, who is managing director of Midland Pig Producers (MPP), a farming group finishing 52,000 slaughter hogs per year, announced this summer that survival for the sector in these times of soaring feed prices and diminishing pork returns might depend on his approach.

This is how he sees his green circle system working. The basis is a three-megawatt electricity generator currently being built on an MPP hog production unit. This is to be fuelled by biogas.

The biogas is produced from the fermenting of pig manure supplemented by catering and industrial kitchen waste from nearby towns. Fermentation residue is delivered as crop fertilizer to neighbouring farmers, who are under contract to produce feed barley and wheat for MPP hog feed.

The grain-growing farmers also get free seed from MPP, which deducts the cost (and fertilizer value) from the end price it offers for the 15,000 tonnes of feed grain needed for the hogs.

Martin Barker reckons that current energy prices mean that his three-megawatt biogas plant could earn the equivalent of $2.1 million a year in electricity sales, plus providing free heat for his farrowing barns. Then there's the income from taking delivery of waste food. Currently, dumping this organic material in refuse costs $140 a tonne.

"Survival for many hog farmers might well depend on them producing energy from manure," he claims. "Such a system could make pork production profitable again."

An electronic eye in the farrowing barn
As one of the first hog producers in northwest Germany to apply continual electronic surveillance in the farrowing barn, Petra Schenke says that the simple system of mobile camcorder transmitting to laptop in the farmhouse kitchen has helped her achieve an annual weaned per sow figure of between 25 and 26 hogs over the last two years.

"It's good for the animals because I can keep a continual eye on them without going out too often to check in the evening when we have a late farrowing, And, of course, it is also good for me," says Petra Schenke who, with husband Uwe, runs a 210-sow, farrow-to-finish herd. "Not rushing back and forward to the farrowing barn at night means I am more rested and keep a clearer head as far as management of the hog unit goes."

The system could not be simpler, she says. A single camcorder on a tripod moves around to whatever sow is expected to farrow during the evening, with the recordings directed via wireless LAN into the house.

As well as a camera, there's also a cowbell prominent in the Schenke hog barn. The farmer rings this when it's feeding time for the dry sows.

"The way our steading is laid out, we have to pass through the dry sow barn fairly often during the day and this causes unrest amongst the animals, because each time someone appears the sows think they are going to get fed."

Petra Schenke asked her swine breeding company for advice and it suggested some sort of audio attention-grabber that is sounded only when feeding was commencing.

"We happened to have an Alpine cow bell handy and this proved ideal. We can now walk through the barn at any time and the sows don't stir, because they learned very quickly that only when the bell is rung do they get any feed."

Chicory root helps control intestinal disease
This year, an estimated 500 acres of chicory root is being grown on Danish farms, mostly for drying before inclusion in hog rations. University trials over the past three years have indicated that the root offers significant advantages in natural intestinal disease control and reduction of "boar taint" in the meat of uncastrated hogs.

Now, Danish Pig Production, the national umbrella organization for hog farming and pork processing, has commenced new trials with the ingredient fed under commercial conditions. Slaughter hog diets will be supplemented with either five or 10 per cent dried chicory root for the last two weeks before slaughter. As yet, no slaughterhouse is willing to risk slaughtering uncastrated males for conventional pork production, But, according to Prof. Knud Erik Bach Knudsen from the University of Aarhus, there is now more interest from processors in any alternative to castration as they sense growing resistance to the procedure amongst European pork consumers.

So far, other trials run by the University of Aarhus show that even feeding dried chicory for a single week before slaughter reduces taint problems with entire males because sugar inulin in the roots inhibits formulation of skatole, one of the main substances blamed for taint production.

On top of this, because the inulin alters flora populations within the hog gut, the chicory diet has been proven to reduce intestinal parasites and control certain diarrhea-causing pathogens, such as Lawsonia and dysentery bacteria.

"When fed to piglets we have not been able to prove that chicory root has a direct effect on degree of post-weaning diarrhea," cautions Knudsen. "But, at 19 per cent inclusion, there was an improved growth rate after weaning and increased concentration of lactic acid in manure, indicating that chicory root has an overall beneficial effect at this stage."

Trials feeding more chicory, both to increase performance of young hogs and to reduce skatole production by hogs for a few weeks prior to slaughter, are to continue in Denmark.

If accepted as an important natural ingredient in slaughter swine rations, would chicory supplementation increase feeding costs? At the moment, chicory crops are still scarce in north Europe and Knudsen puts the current cost at from $1,350 to $1,550 per tonne.

Wild boar wins a bigger market share in Britain
With the equivalent of $5 per kilogram of slaughterweight earned by farm-raised wild boar meat in the United Kingdom this summer, compared with around $2 a kilogram for a conventional hog carcass, it's small wonder that there's big demand for wild hog breeding stock. Increasing the demand is the good health image of this meat – and its relative scarcity.

In fact, British wild boar has become fashionable. The biggest buyers are quality restaurants and specialist butchers throughout Britain and France. "It's very lean, it's tasty and still somewhat exotic," says Dr Martin Goulding, chief of the Wild Boar Consultancy in England. "There's certainly a lot of interest from farmers wanting to start up herds of 'wild' pigs."

Dr. Goulding admits that there are very few details available about the size of the British wild boar production sector. "Most of the breeding stock was imported from Sweden some years ago and recorded in the statistics as conventional swine. Also, herds are not registered centrally, only with regional governments. There was a breeders' association but this went bust, and making the waters even murkier is the practice by some wild boar meat producers of crossing their stock with domestic breeds."

This can more than double production per sow because the real wild sows breed only once a year but, says Dr Goulding, it means the resultant pork loses at least some of its "gamey" flavour.

A trawl through the available statistics has been made by the Scottish Agricultural College (SAC). SAC economist Steven Thomson reckons that, in 2007, there were around 2,000 breeding sows in Britain's "wild boar" sector, spread out in around 100 farms.

Where there was no crossing with commercial swine, Thomson admits that output is pretty poor with sometimes just a half dozen hogs per sow each year, although this can rise to around 10 per year with older females. Even after nine to 12 months' feeding, the wild boar hogs weigh in at only around 80 kilograms liveweight, but the good news is that the killing-out percentage can be as high as around 65 per cent.

Setting up a herd is not cheap. Breeding females can cost around $1,000 and $1,400 if they are in-pig. The price tag on a young boar can also edge over the $1,000 mark.
But $5 per kilogram for the slaughter hogs and cheap high-roughage diets backed by plenty of grazing and rooting with limited grain means gross margins per sow can top $900 per year.

Considering that the labour input requirement is described as relatively low by the SAC and a rough shelter represents all housing needs, it's not too hard to see why wild boar fever has gripped at least some British farmers. BP