Game changing research headed your way

Tuesday, February 5, 2013

While Canada's troubled pork industry lurches from crisis to crisis, research dollars continue to be poured into it. Some projects will provide some cost or productivity relief soon, while others will take some time to have an effect for producers. Here's a sampling of some of the research underway across Canada.

by DON STONEMAN

Phase feeding moves to a new level
Candido Pomar is working with the sixth version of a machine that will customize the feed provided to each pig in a commercial feeder barn. "We are very close" to commercial development, says Pomar, a research scientist with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada based in Lennoxville, Que. A commercial evaluation will take place in 2013, but it may be three to four years before it is ready for commercial production. "We are putting the feeders in commercial facilities for validation," he says.

Pomar is developing this feeder with his brother Jesus, an agricultural engineer at the University of Lleida in Spain, where the feeder is being built. "It is an international venture," Candido Pomar says.

The technology takes so-called "phase feeding" of pigs, where a group gets three or four different rations, depending on the average size of the pig in the group, to a new level.

Use of the feeder Pomar has developed involves pigs that are individually identified with ear tags. As the scientist explains, when the pig comes to feed, the trough is empty. Each pig has to learn to activate the feeder. An activation provides a "service" of about 25-30 grams of feed. A pig can activate as many services as it wants on each trip to the feeder.

The feeder provides a specialized combination of two premixes. The blend is different for each pig and can vary from day to day. "We know what each pig eats every day," Pomar says. "We can estimate the feed consumption for the coming day." Each pig has its own diet every day and is weighed every time it comes to the feeder.

The pigs will not come to market faster with this system, Pomar stresses. However, Pomar's research has shown that a pig fed with this system will eat 25 per cent less protein and also less phosphorus and other nutrients. In healthy pigs, a 25 per cent reduction in protein fed results in 40 per cent less nitrogen excreted in the manure, he says.

"For the farmer, it will be very easy," Pomar says. "All he has to do is to tag the pigs." The feeder will identify the pigs and start collecting information on feeding patterns and weight gains. In the first week, all the pigs get a standard diet. After another week, the computer has collected enough information on the pigs on such things as weight and growth performance that it can produce a specific diet for each pig based on just two premixes in separate silos.

Pomar says economic evaluations are being done now on the cost of the feeder, but he doesn't expect the costs to be high. The mechanical and electronic parts are not complex, he says. What is complex is the software and that has already been developed.

The savings per pig will depend upon feed costs, of course. Based on costs several years ago, Pomar estimated a savings of $8 a pig because of reduced protein consumption. Now he expects the savings will be much higher. There will also be a reduction in costs because of fewer feed mixes. He thinks two premixes can cover all of the needs of pigs in spite of different genetics and rates of growth.

Pomar says an algorithm has been developed which estimates dollars of feed per pig, rather than dollars per kilogram of feed consumed. The feeding program reduces the cost of feed per pig during the growth period. "We are minimizing the number of dollars that the pig is eating."

Distillers grains need a starch backup
With high corn prices and a plethora of distillers dried grains solubles (DDGS) available, hog feeders are tempted, or even forced, to use DDGS as a key part of their rations. While DDGS, a byproduct of the ethanol-making process, have a place in swine diets, they can't completely substitute for grain, according to research at the Prairie Swine Centre in Saskatoon.

Pigs still need starch in their diets for optimal lean muscle growth, notes nutrition scientist Denise Beaulieu. Starch is removed during the fermentation process when grains are made into ethanol.
Gilts were fed diets with starch contents of zero, 5.5, 11, 16.5 and 22 per cent starch. Protein and caloric contents in the rations were the same in each diet, with the difference in calories being equalized by adding canola oil. A commercial hog feeding ration was used for comparison.

"A lot of these byproducts are very, very low in starch," Beaulieu says. While a pig can get energy from fat, protein or fibre, Beaulieu explains that starch is the pig's main source of glucose. "Our hypothesis was that glucose is the main trigger for insulin release and insulin is required for muscle growth," she says.

Average daily feed intake and feed conversion were not affected by the amount of starch in the diet. However, average daily gain improved as the starch intake increased.

Blood urea nitrogen, a waste product of the digestion of protein, decreased as starch levels increased in the diets they were fed. Carcass protein and water deposition increased along with the levels of dietary starch. The efficiency of utilization of crude protein for protein gain in the muscle tended to improve as starch content in the diets increased. Protein deposition also improved with added starch content in the diet.

There should always be a grain source in the diet, says Beaulieu. At least 25 per cent of the diet, as measured nutritionally, should be starch.

Unused teats produce less milk on subsequent lactations
Some new research on mammary gland function in sows may make sow barn operators rethink how they manage the prolific gilts introduced into their herd.

Producers with an eye to body condition on gilts with many babies may want to avoid thin sow syndrome, which can limit their lifespan in the sow herd. So they cross-foster some of the piglets to another sow. However, the remaining piglets are not going to use all of the teats on their mother and, as demonstrated by the work of an Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada researcher, the unused teats simply won't be as productive when the next round of babies is born.

A study by Chantal Farmer, based at the Dairy and Swine Research and Development Centre in Sherbrooke, Que., shows that teats that were suckled after the first birthing produce more milk (and therefore larger piglets) in subsequent lactations than teats that were not suckled.

The difference in weight per pig was about 1.12 kilograms when piglets were 56 days old, even though the pigs were weaned at about 18 days (see Table 1). The difference in weight between the two groups of piglets was observed as early as days 2 and 4, which indicates that colostrum yield may differ between the two groups. As well, the sows where all teats were most productive ate more feed than the other sows, another indication that more milk was being produced.

"Making sure they (teats) are all used up is the best thing that producers can do," Farmer says.  But that may not be what happens, particularly with highly prolific white pigs. Over many years of genetic selection, white pigs have not only become more prolific, they tend to be leaner. Thin sow syndrome occurs over a period of months. Because of inadequate nutrition or poor quality feeds the bodily needs of the sow in that environment are unsatisfied. So they cross-foster some of the piglets to another sow. However, the remaining piglets are not going to use all of the teats on their mother. And the unused teats simply won't be as productive when the next round of babies is born.

Farmer says it is clear from her research that second litter babies suckling teats which hadn't been used in a previous farrowing will get less milk and wean at a smaller size than piglets which suckled from teats that were used.

Farmer notes that piglets could tell if the teats had been previously used and they fought other piglets for access to them. Piglets suckling on the previously unused teats showed greater hunger. She has no idea how the piglets know which teats will give them the most milk.

Thin sow syndrome is typically an issue with white sows. "If you don't have that problem, you can leave all of the piglets on that gilt."

By contrast, Chinese sows, typically Meishans, are also very prolific but are not susceptible to thin sow syndrome. "They are very fat," Farmer says.

Cheaper weaner rations might work
Can weaner pig rations be made cheaper by eliminating some costly ingredients? In some cases, the answer is "yes," says University of Guelph animal and poultry scientist Kees de Lange.

The single most costly ingredient in weaner feeds today is dried blood plasma "by a long shot," de Lange says. Blood plasma is made from blood that is collected at packing plants. But acidifiers and oat grouts are also considered expensive ingredients in weaner pig diets, de Lange says.

Removing blood plasma from diets is controversial. "You will make the animals a little less robust," de Lange says. If there is a disease in their environment, there will be problems. "Health management needs to go hand-in-hand with those changes in the feeding program. That is the single biggest warning that goes with it," de Lange says.

A more practical approach than simply getting rid of those expensive ingredients is to keep them in weaner diets for the first week in the nursery barn. "Maybe remove them in weeks 2 or 3 – that is where the biggest opportunities are, money-wise," de Lange says.

When de Lange pitched this approach at a swine conference last year he estimated the savings at $5 a pig. Now he has reduced that estimate to about $2 a pig. That's because some feed ingredients aren't as expensive as they once were, and also because de Lange doesn't want to raise expectations too high for producers. "I want to undersell it, not oversell it," de Lange says. "Two dollars a pig is still a lot of money."

With five million pigs in Ontario, that is a potential savings of $10 million annually for the provincial industry.