Eye On Europe: Mangalitsa swine: there's plenty of meat under all that wool!

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

Breeders of these curly-coated Hungarian pigs are finding out that demand for their fat-marbled meat is attracting premium prices.

by NORMAN DUNN

Pork meat from the heavy, curly-coated woolly swine, the Mangalitsa, is selling in the United States, and now in Spain, for at least 30 per cent more than meat from conventional commercial hybrids.

The demand is mainly from restaurateurs who claim that pork dishes from the Hungarian breed are tastier because the meat is "marbled" with intramuscular fat. Also in high demand: Sausages and salamis from Mangalitsa meat. In Hungary, one farm in particular claims to have rescued the once-common outdoor breed from oblivion after the collapse of the communist system in the early 1990s.

On an enterprise around 200 kilometres from Budapest, zoologist Dr Peter Toth collected as many purebreds as he could and now feeds around 8,000 Mangalitsa swine for slaughter at 140 kilograms liveweight with a further 12,000 hogs per year produced on neighbouring units. The marbled meat is in great demand for curing as well as eating fresh. For instance, there's a thriving trade for the hams with Spain, where they are cured and sold as "jamón Mangalica" with a quality claimed to be as good as the renowned black Iberico hams.

Currently, there are also growing populations of Mangalitsa in Switzerland, Austria, Germany and the United Kingdom (where a herd book for the breed – spelled Mangalitza there – is administered now by the British Pig Association).

In Hungary, there are now purebred Mangalitsa sows on 14 to 15 farms, according to the Swiss society for protection of old and endangered domestic breeds (GEF), with possibly more purebred animals in neighbouring countries such as the Czech Republic and Croatia.  

Production in the United States, where the main restaurant trade has been established using the breed name on menus, includes around 1,200 pigs per year from one farming company in Washington, "Wooly Pigs", which ships meat and feeding stock countrywide.

The meat earns a premium of around 36 per cent, according to recent prices, and this bonus is critical if farming the breed has any future, because many reports indicate that the Mangalitsa is a poor breeder compared with modern hybrids with just five to eight born alive per litter. Additionally, feeding the slaughter pigs to 140 kilograms means that feed conversion efficiency will also be below commercial hybrid levels.

But, as one British breeder points out: "The Mangalitsa's weight gain performance is much the same as with commercial hybrids. Because marbled meat and heavy hogs are the aim, the pigs are naturally fed much longer. But in the end this extra input can be paid for by the premium for the meat."

Creep insulation cuts energy bills by more than 65 per cent

How much heat energy can be saved when piglet creeps in farrowing pens are insulated and entrances covered by plastic curtains?

Creeps that are protected against heat loss in this way and have automatic temperature controlling sensors inside need only around 35 per cent, of the energy input of conventional non-insulated piglet shelters, according to latest trials by the Swiss Agroscope Research Institute (ART).

Generally, farrowing house temperatures are kept low in Switzerland because the authorities recognise that an ambience of between 14 and 18 C is best for the sows. This recommendation for farmers makes effective heating of piglet creeps all the more important and led to the testing by ART of the advantages of creep insulation.

Two types were tested: one with 150-watt infrared light heating controlled by an infrared temperature sensor and one with a simple large-area electro-heating plate fitted under the lid, again with automatic temperature adjustment via inbuilt sensor. The creeps were also tried out with single or double plastic curtains across the entrance.

Without piglets in the creep and with farrowing pen temperature averaging 14 C, the insulated creep with infrared heating and single curtains maintained a temperature of 24.7 C, the one with the electric plate heating 27.8 C. The non-insulated creep temperature reached only 24.1 C, taking six hours to warm up to that level and, with 28.9 W for every degree of temperature, demanding double the electrical energy needed for insulated creeps.

On top of this, the Swiss researchers found that fitting a double curtain across the creep entrances further reduced energy requirements by an average of 15 per cent.
When the creeps were full of piglets, the energy required to maintain internal temperature was naturally less, although continual movement of animals through the curtains increased heat seepage. 

Giving hogs a treacle treat lowers stress

Hog stress and resulting aggressive acts, such as tail biting, are claimed to be substantially reduced on a growing number of German feeding units through the simple remedy of buckets of molasses suspended above the pens between laying and feeding zones. The contents, supplemented with magnesium and sodium to further help quieten the animals, can be continually licked by the swine through small openings on the underside of the buckets.

"EU regulations and many quality pork marketing programs here require that the natural instincts of hogs in searching for feed or playing be satisfied with objects in the pens," explains Franziska Bardt, product manager for the new idea, marketed in Germany by Crystalyx, as Piglyx. "The hanging bucket with the sweet contents satisfies the animals' natural instincts and therefore the requirements of the welfare regulations. We've had good reports from a growing number of farmers adopting this system."

Most farmers start offering the molasses buckets right after weaning with the containers hung on a single cord about 35 centimetres above the pen floor. "This keeps the hogs busy trying to reach and lick the underside," says Franziska.  For bigger feeding pigs, the recommended bucket position is up to 55 centimetres above the pen floor.

Bucket contents also include palm oil and total nutritional value is put at 43 per cent sugar, 20 of ash, four of crude protein, 2.5 of fat and with magnesium at 2.5 per cent and sodium at two per cent.

With larger hogs, daily consumption averages 10 grams per animal, according to experience so far. Cost? In Germany, the molasses lick buckets for hogs are selling at the equivalent of C$19 for a five-kilogram container.

Painkillers at castration offer extra weight gain

Most animal welfare pressure groups in Europe are now pushing for either full anesthesia during piglet castration, local anesthetic injection or the injection of so-called nonsteroid anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs). These NSAIDs, which can include aspirin salsalate, meloxicam or flunixim active ingredients, are already widely used as moderate pain killers before or after operations by vets and are now being tried out at piglet castration with encouraging results.

One veterinary practice in northwest Germany completed a trial this spring with over 500 male piglets, around half being injected ante-castration with an NSAID and the remainder operated on without any painkiller. Even after four days, there was a clear advantage in weight gain of around 90 grams average per treated piglet.

Another trial followed the performance of more than 2,000 piglets right through to 28-day weaning and discovered that those receiving NSAID painkillers averaged an extra190 grams liveweight. The piglets with the painkillers are obviously able to get back to suckling much faster following castration, reckon the vets.

Pellets can bring an extra C$5 per hog

In Europe, hog feeders who prefer using dry rations pay an average C$8 per tonne more for crumbs or pelleted feed compared with plain meal. Now, everyone accepts that there's a lot less dust generated with crumbs and pellets and probably not so much waste. But the big question has always been: Where components are exactly the same, is the extra expense for the processed feed really worth it?

One of Germany's top farm research institutes, Haus Düsse, has some answers after test feeding some 200 hogs from 26 kilograms through to an average 119 kilograms at slaughter. And it's a clear win for the processed feeds with both crumbs and pellets boosting all-round feeding performance and leaving an extra margin over feed equal to an average C$5 per hog.

In hard figures, the hogs on meal ate four per cent more than those on crumbs and 7.6 per cent more than the pellet feeders. But their daily liveweight gain was 30 grams lower than the crumb-fed pens and 60 grams down on those getting pelleted feed. (See Table 1 below.)

Feed conversion also proved much better with the processed feeds. An average 2.71 kilograms of meal was needed for one kilogram of weight gain, but only 2.6 kilograms of crumbs and 2.5 kilograms of pellets. The processed feeds also kept their advantage for killing out percentage and only lost it when the amount of fat laid on during feeding was measured. The hogs on the processed feeds had a slightly poorer muscle to fat ration, although not enough to cause any grading penalties in the slaughterhouse.