Nutrition: Time to administer some tough love to your feeding program

Wednesday, February 4, 2009

In tough economic times, it is important for producers to re-evaluate their operation's feeding program so as to save money without compromising animal performance

by JANICE MURPHY

Despite the recent decline in oil prices, the realities of feeding pigs remain hard on the wallet. Thanks to increased demand for alternative fuels, the competition for feed ingredients has stretched prices upward.

While pork producers have always been conscious of ways to improve production efficiencies and reduce input costs, it is especially vital during these tough times to take another look at potential opportunities for cost savings. There will be no simple answer, but there are options for producers to get their bottom line back into the black.

It is no secret that feed costs make the biggest single contribution to cost of production, so it follows that improvements in efficiency of feed utilization provide the greatest opportunity to decrease overall production costs. In tough economic times, it is important for producers to re-evaluate their operation's feeding program so as to save money without compromising animal performance.

A short list should include, at a minimum, a re-evaluation of dietary nutrient levels, an assessment of feed-processing methods and associated strategies to minimize feed wastage, a review of the marketing strategy and consideration of alternative feed ingredients.

Fine-tune dietary nutrient levels
Now, more than ever, a re-examination of dietary nutrient levels relative to the animal's requirements warrants a second look. An assessment could include the number of phases used and feed budget for each diet, split-sex feeding and the potential savings associated with removing certain nutrients from the diet during the final weeks of the finisher period.

Finding the right balance between dietary nutrient levels and optimum pig growth is a complex process. The complete picture must be considered in avoiding under-feeding nutrients and limiting optimal performance on the one hand and over-feeding on the other. Despite years of genetic progress, there remains tremendous variation in lean gain potential, and the related nutrient requirements, among breeds and lines of pigs.

In order to make strides in this area, information is power. The more that you know about the specific nutrient requirements of your animals, their feed intake and lean growth potential, the better the feeding program can be designed to streamline the under- or over-feeding of expensive nutrients. A qualified nutritionist can help you identify and collect the specific data they need and design a feeding program which will meet their needs.

Phase feeding and split-sex feeding involves feeding a series of diets, each differing in nutrient content, to match the nutrient requirements of different age, weight or sex of pigs. Besides the obvious benefit of progressively reducing diet costs, there are environmental implications as fewer nutrients are excreted, and there is potential for improved feed efficiency.

A feed budget can be used in concert with phase feeding to specify the amount of each diet that will be fed as pigs move up through the weight classes. With this approach, it makes sense that the more phases used, the closer nutrient needs will match requirements. But it is important to realize that even that has physical, logistical and economic limits. More is not always better.

The idea of removing certain dietary ingredients and expensive nutrients for a period of time before slaughter to reduce the feed cost is not a new one. Whenever feed prices climb, there is always renewed interest in this practice in the pork industry. Past research has shown that vitamin and trace mineral premixes, and at least two thirds of the dietary inorganic phosphate, can be removed from finisher diets for up to four to six weeks before slaughter with little effect on performance and carcass characteristics. However, it should be noted that this strategy is not recommended for gilts which producers plan to retain in the breeding herd.

Optimize the feeding system
After putting time and energy into re-formulating diets to optimize nutrient levels, the feed manufacturing process deserves careful scrutiny to ensure that all the efficiencies gained are not simply lost during mixing. Producers who are manufacturing feed on-farm, regardless of the system being used, should have a quality control program in place to ensure that diets are mixed properly. Even small errors in mixing can throw nutrient levels off and cause significant losses in performance.

Minimizing feed wastage provides a tremendous opportunity to lower feed costs. A complete examination of the equipment in the feeding system should include everything used to store, weigh, mix, deliver and present feed to pigs to ensure expensive rations are not being lost or compromised at any point along the way.
One of the key components of the system is the feeders themselves. Considering the amount of feed going through a feeder over its lifetime, getting the proper feeder in the first place is vital. Beyond that, proper management of feeders can either make or break the whole system. Based on research findings, it is generally recommended that feeders be checked daily as a part of routine maintenance and adjusted so that roughly 50 per cent of the bottom of the feeder is visible. Ultimately, keeping feed wastage to a minimum could represent the difference between putting money in the wallet and shelling it out.

Researchers have long recommended that swine diets should have a particle size of between 600 and 800 microns. They have suggested that every 100-micron reduction in particle size to the optimum range will result in a 1.2 per cent improvement in feed efficiency, which translates into approximately three kilograms less feed per finishing pig. Pelleting swine rations, especially where fibrous ingredients are used, will improve feed handling and animal performance. However, it does increase the total cost of a diet, so it is important to calculate the added cost and compare the expected gains in efficiency to determine if pelleting will pencil out.

Review the marketing strategy
With the high cost of feed, choosing an optimal market weight for pigs has become a critical piece in the economic puzzle. Although packers may be looking for heavier market weight hogs, the cost of feeding pigs to heavier weights deserves careful consideration. Simply put, the most profitable weight to sell market pigs is when the cost of adding the next pound of weight is equal to the return on that pound of weight. While this sounds simple, in reality it is much more complicated.
John Lawrence at Iowa State University recently developed a spreadsheet to help producers determine the optimum market weight for their operation. Simple and advanced models are available for download from his website at: http://www.econ.iastate.edu/faculty/
lawrence/Lawrence_website/porkdecisiontools.htm.

His calculators allow producers to input their own data to assess the impact of feeding pigs for longer periods of time. As would be expected, the market weight that would maximize return decreases as feed price increases. However, a producer must carefully evaluate their packer's pricing structure as well as their input costs to settle upon the right market weight for their situation.

Consider alternative feed ingredients
Alternative feed ingredients might offer a way to directly lower feed cost without compromising performance. The key to successfully incorporating alternative feeds into the feeding program is to take into consideration factors such as the nutrient profile, presence of any anti-nutritional factors, value, any added costs, availability, quality and consistency of the ingredient.

The three costliest components of a typical swine ration are the ingredients which supply energy, protein (specifically lysine) and phosphorus. In order to make sense, the alternative ingredient would need to replace traditional ingredients at a cost that is competitive. All the costs associated with the use of any particular alternative ingredient must be taken into consideration when determining its ultimate cost.

The Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs (OMAFRA) recently added a spreadsheet to its website to help producers determine the relative economic advantage of using alternative feed ingredients. It calculates the value of the ingredient as it relates to the three most expensive nutrients in a swine ration based on a comparison between the nutrient levels in the alternative feed and the standard feed ingredients – corn, soybean meal and dicalcium phosphate – and their respective costs. The spreadsheet can be downloaded at: http://www.omafra.gov.on.ca/english/livestock/swine/calcs/wksht_swinenutrition.htm.

The bottom line is that escalating feed prices have stretched input costs past their limit. While there is no silver bullet to solve this problem, there are options available to producers who are willing to dissect their operations and consider alternative strategies. However, each strategy needs to be carefully evaluated on its own merits within the particular production system to ensure that the right balance is struck between cost of production and animal performance. BP

Source: R.D. Coffey. 2008. Tools to Cope with Current Economics. Proceedings of the Midwest Swine Nutrition Conference. Indianapolis, Indiana. September 4, 2008.

Janice Murphy is a former OMAFRA swine nutritionist who now lives and works in Prince Edward Island.