Eye On Europe: Pneumatic beds will help avoid pressure sores on Danish sows
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
Continually moving air pressure beneath the lying sows will prevent shoulder sores in nursing sows, believes this Danish barn builder
by NORMAN DUNN
The principle of variable-pressure pneumatic mattresses, developed originally to avoid development of pressure sores with bed-ridden patients in hospitals, has been applied in farrowing crate flooring to avoid shoulder sores with nursing sows.
Danish barn builder Graakjaer will launch a pneumatic floor cushion system this year that continually moves air pressure beneath the lying sow so that no particular contact point bears the sow's full weight for more than a few seconds at a time. "This is a simple system based on hospital experience and our on-farm tests have proved it works very well," explains Graakjaer marketing manager Tommy Wolk.
The Danish government has recently stepped in with new legislation encouraging more care in avoiding pressure sores with sows. Any untreated case now found by welfare officers brings the farmer responsible a DKK 10,000 ($1,860) fine with a second offence from the same herd doubling the fine per animal.
Dare we say Piglet poncho protects poorly piglets
Bigger litters are the trend in Denmark. But records show that, with farrowings of 12 and more live pigs, birth weight tends to fall. The result is a larger number of litter members under 1,000 grams.
"In this situation, otherwise healthy piglets of 900 grams and below are at a real disadvantage in competition for suckling and more susceptible to undercooling and disease, with resulting higher mortality," says Claus Holmgaard, marketing manager with international veterinary suppliers Kruuse.
But low weights at birth are not a problem for all Danish hog farmers. One of them, Lone Maas, tried the simple solution of slipping homemade jackets around the most susceptible litter members to insulate them from heat loss. Maas found that this approach saved piglets, protecting them from heat loss and boosting their energy and vitality, so helping them to fight successfully for a place at the sow's teats.
Encouraged, she went further and designed a practical jacket of lightweight synthetic material. Now called the Porcivet Thermo Cape, the piglet poncho will be launched on the market this spring. The jacket - which can be washed at 30 C - covers and keeps warm the important heart and lung regions and almost the entire length of the animal's back. The piglet's forelegs fit into openings in the front of the jacket, which is tied under the body at the back, giving a snug fit for different sizes of piglets while still leaving optimum freedom of movement for the legs.
"We found it was not practical to use right from birth with small piglets," cautions Claus Holmgaard. "For the first 24 hours or so, the piglet hasn't usually the muscle co-ordination to move about with the jacket on. But after that the jacket can be fitted and gives them a kick-start in life when kept on for three to five days."
In the first trials on a commercial farm, jackets were fitted on the underweight (under 900 grams) members of 22 litters and performance compared with 22 litters where the jacket was not used. Mortality in this weight class was 13 per cent for the jacket wearers and up to 40 per cent in the control litters. Holmgaard calculates that the result represented an extra hog finished per litter where the jacket was used.
Price: $20-$23 per pack of three.
'Hog biodiesel' starts flowing in Danish gas stations
First deliveries of biodiesel from processed hog carcasses were delivered to gas stations in the Danish region of Jutland in January this year. Daka, a corporation already producing biodiesel from canola oil, has opened a $34.3 million plant dedicated to processing oil from hog (and cattle) carcasses and slaughterhouse by-products. The aim, says Daka managing director Henrik Holst-Pedersen, is to be producing around 1,000 tonnes of hog biodiesel every week by the end of this year. If everything runs well, the plant output will be doubled within a few years.
"What we are offering is an answer to people who claim biofuel from crops is taking limited farmland out of food and feed production. We use category I and II carcasses in our plant. These are carcasses that are not allowed into the food or feed chain under European Union (EU) regulations. We also use surplus pieces from food standard hogs, items that are oversupplied in the current meat markets: some of the heads for example."
While most calculations estimate an energy input-output surplus of some 40 per cent with canola methyl ester biodiesel, Holst-Pedersen emphasizes that, for every kW of energy needed to produce hog biodiesel, 4 kW of energy are produced in the form of fuel.
"The energy balance is very good because, after fat extraction, carcasses are reduced to meal and, although not allowed for animal feed, it finds a ready market as a furnace fuel in cement production works. On top of this, we are utilizing meat and carcasses in our system which would otherwise have to be disposed off at considerable cost and no return."
The new Daka hog biodiesel refinery could end up using slaughterhouse waste from the whole of Europe and may start a new trend in environment-friendly fuel production because already a partnership has been announced with a German company specializing in international trading of animal by-products.
Currently the hog biodiesel is added at a 5.75 per cent proportion to conventional diesel in some Danish gas stations. EU regulations aimed at reducing climate-altering gas emissions stipulate that this proportion of conventional automotive fuels has to be replaced by biofuels - usually biodiesel from canola or bioethanol.
Biodiesel by-product boosts hog performance
Canola biodiesel production plants have an output of 100 kilograms of raw glycerine for every 1,000 kgs of fuel, so it's no surprise that the current biodiesel boom means that substantial amounts of the by-product are now available on the market.
Hog feeders in Germany have been testing the glycerine as a possible energy supplier in rations with the idea of saving feed costs and are being pleasantly surprised by the advantages offered. A trial at the Rohrsen Livestock Performance Testing Institute in Lower Saxony found that raw glycerine from canola biodiesel production in hog rations increased daily liveweight gain (dlwg), improved feed conversion ration and reduced costs by an average $1.80 per feeding hog.
The animals were fed from 27 kilograms to slaughter at an average 117 kgs liveweight (lw). Fifty of the hogs had 14 megajoules of metabolizable energy (MJME) in their rations supplied by raw glycerine (four per cent of diet) while another 50 were fed a conventional mix of exactly the same energy content. From 27 to 55 kilograms lw, the hogs on glycerine showed a 3.5 performance boost (963 grams dlwg) over the control group. As the hogs got heavier, the glycerine advantage was reduced a little. But overall, between 27 and 117 kgs liveweight, glycerine in the diet still offered a 2.8 per cent better dlwg. The glycerine-fed group managed one kg of liveweight gain for every 2.51 kgs of feed, compared with the 2.56 kilos required by the control group.
Twin-climate system for Dutch farrowing barn
The need to ensure that the sow in the farrowing crate gets a good supply of cool, fresh air while the temperature remains warm for litter members at floor level is leading to development of twin-climate farrowing systems on Dutch farms.
"We've seen over the years that sows in the farrowing barn eat less when they have to live in temperatures that are best for the piglets," explains John van Striek from ventilation specialist Jovas. "Trials indicate that sows prefer an air temperature of around 15 C, but the temperature in most farrowing pens is nearer 22 C. This leads to the sows losing appetite and body condition, which affects their performance and that of their piglets."
One answer is to give sows their own supply of fresh air. A system being fitted in Dutch farms just now features a ventilation pipe for each pen, which takes air from the floor of the inspection passage and up to an outlet grating positioned in front of the farrowing crate at sow nose level.
"We've introduced this direct ventilation for the sow on a number of breeding units and farmers tell us that the sows feed much better during nursing with more milk for the piglets," says van Striek. He adds that the conventional ventilation in the barn and piglet creep temperature is not affected.
Fitting the so-called nose-ventilation systems in an existing farrowing barn in the Netherlands costs the equivalent of around $140 per pen.
In Germany, advisers in the main swine breeding regions now also recommend a twin-climate system in the farrowing pen. The Chamber of Agriculture in Westphalia lists variations, including a separate porous air duct running across the farrowing pens directly above the sows' heads. The most important point, say the Westphalia advisers, is to avoid direct draughts from the sow ventilation outlets. BP