Probiotic hog feed makes for less cost and lower emissions
Thursday, December 5, 2013
Cutting down on ration energy and protein ingredients without penalizing profit is possible. Just add beneficial bacilli, an extra enzyme and organically bound trace elements
by NORMAN DUNN
As usual, the squeeze on hog feeders comes from two sides. Feed costs are becoming ever more expensive – in Germany, the breakeven slaughter price is the equivalent of C$2.52 per kilogram according to the farmer organization Landvolk. Actual price being paid to feeders is around $2.38 this fall.
At the other end, literally, tighter regulations on manure spreading mean that nitrate and phosphorus limits per acre (e.g., 69 kilograms of N per acre in Germany) are being reached so quickly that export of manure to other districts, or even countries, is now fairly common. In 2012, 2.4 million tons of manure were driven from Dutch farms and sold in crop-growing areas in neighbouring Germany – 16 per cent more than in the previous year. So manure nutrients have to be reduced urgently. But can this be done without performance penalties?
"Yes," say researchers at Osnabrück University Faculty of Agricultural Sciences. They've been trying out probiotic-boosted feeds with reduced nutrient content lately on around 60 JSR hybrids and comparing results with the same number on standard rations. Energy, crude protein and trace elements were reduced for the trial group hogs. In a three-phase feeding regime from 28 kilograms to 118 kilograms liveweight, the hogs had identical rations in the first phase. Phase two brought 13.0 MJ ME instead of 13.4 for the trial hogs and in the third phase 12.8 MJ ME instead of 13.0.
The trial group received 0.5 per cent less crude protein in the second phase, while copper, zinc, manganese and iron content were all reduced for the trial group and, instead, their diet was supplemented with a mix of beneficial micro-organisms – Bacilli subtilis and licheniformis, an NSP-degrading enzyme and some extra organically bonded trace elements such as glycinchelates.
First results indicate a benefit for the probiotic approach, although admittedly not a dramatic one. Daily liveweight gain was better for the trial hogs at 859 grams compared with 848 grams on average. Feed conversion was better for the probiotic hogs at 2.77:1 against 2.80:1. The trial group were ready for slaughter in the same week, so no advantage there. The researchers reckon $1.40 per hog was saved in feed costs. And, of course, the environment benefitted from the lower-nutrient manure.
Grass-fed Alpine pork brings new impetus to the market
Upland farmers in Switzerland, Austria and Bavaria have been successfully marketing their cheeses with the Alpine image of purity and close-to-nature production for hundreds of years. Now, pork from pioneer mountainside producers is appearing behind the label "Alpenschweinefleisch" or Alpine pork.
The growing hunger for foods that boast more tradition, better taste, an element of country idyll and perhaps an added portion of animal welfare is encouraging more pork from swine summered in Alpine pastures between 1,000 and 2,000 metres. The main feeds are fresh grass and herbs, plus whey and buttermilk from the traditional upland cheese and butter production.
In Austria, for example, the Tirol Alm (Tyrolean mountain pasture) marketing project lists 12 different Alpine pork production units guaranteeing fresh or processed meat. None of them is big in business terms. But small family units finishing 40 to 50 hogs per summer are part of the marketing magic. Typical units club together to share labour input in the high Alps over summer.
The Holzalm in the Kitzbühl Alps near Niederau, for instance, is a co-operative of 20 farmers fronted by dairying and catering couple Rosmarie and Andi Sammer. Together, the mountain farmers milk around 160 cows and feed 110 hogs per summer. Pork production from these Kitzbühl Alps averaging 1,440 metres above sea level is recorded as far back as the 1500s.
The hogs from another Alpine location have to thrive at 2,000 metres and over. This is the 30 head fed on the Paznauer Taja high above the country town of Landeck. The cheesemakers there pour up to 500 litres of whey into the hog troughs every day. Last year, the participants in the Tyrolean Alpine pork project reckoned they produced in total 15 tons of fresh and processed meat, all sold at a premium (mostly through direct marketing, particularly to the tourist trade).
In Switzerland, on around 140 mountain pastures in the Bündner Alpine range, dairy cows share their grazing with hogs marketed under various Alpine pork labels. The Swiss Alpine pork producers are also the powerhouse behind another aspect of the multinational movement – the saving from complete extinction of traditional swine breeds that were common on the Alpine pastures a century ago.
These are mainly black or piebald races such as the Veltliner or Bündner swine, the Samòlaco or the Austrian Unterwalder or Valsugana breed. All proved themselves over centuries for solid production of high-quality marbled pork on natural Alpine pasture feed. Almost all the old Alpine breeds are dark-skinned for protection against the strong mountain sunshine and UV radiation way up there above the tree line.
Another Swiss Alpine pork pioneer is Jürg Trionfini. With his wife, Sylvia, he has brought the free-grazing Hungarian Mangalitza, or wool swine, up to the pastures over 1,000 metres above Lake Lucerne – so high, in fact, that the last 500 metres to their Wissifluh holding is only accessible by private cable car.
The curly-coated wool swine are tough enough to stand the cold nights that occur even in midsummer at these altitudes. They reach an end weight of 150 to 200 kilograms just on summer grazing and hay with a ration of organically grown cereals in winter. This farming couple, who also runs a restaurant further down the mountainside, describes the meat so produced as more compact and tastier than the conventional pork. Drawback? "Well, the feeding hogs need about a year to reach a good slaughter weight."
Black box reports slaughter facts straight to the farm
More transparent slaughter results, with weighing and grading statistics reported back to the farm office computer within one hour of slaughter, is the aim of Germany's "Black Box" project. Thousands of farmers are being attracted to the concept by the promise that the details of weight and classification (plus separate joint weights, too) cannot be accessed or influenced by the slaughter company.
All data is coded and sent by the respective officially sealed black boxes (situated at every weighing point and electronic FOM grading point) straight to an independent centre. There, subsequent calculations work out the weights of the separate joints before all data are sent within minutes to the appropriate farmers.
Setting the ball rolling was one of Germany's largest slaughterhouse concerns, Tonnies, which handles 16 million hogs per year in six plants. The latest to join the project – which involves the Westphalia Ministry of Agriculture as the monitoring and "policing" organization as well as independent IT firms responsible for operation and maintenance of the system – is the Westfleisch Coesfield plant, where 600 hogs per hour are slaughtered and processed. Annual throughput here is 1.5 million (about 40 per cent of the company's overall hog slaughter total per year).
The system is already being hailed as a breakthrough for hog feeders. Firstly, no more paper lists are involved. And, quite apart from saving all these trees every year, there's less chance of errors being made while transferring printed results.
A separate scheme for independent recording and processing of slaughter-line results has been up and running in Bavaria for over two years now. Almost 8,000 farmers are involved in this model, whose costs are covered by a levy of two eurocents (2.8 Canadian cents) per hog paid entirely by the slaughter concerns.
In Westphalia, the costs are currently being carried by the slaughterhouses, too. These run from 2.8 to seven cents per hog, depending on the size of the concern. Whatever the price, farmers themselves are showing great interest, according to the Westphalia (NRW) Ministry of Agriculture, which believes that the system could soon be adopted for all slaughter operations in northwest Germany.
Will the Dutch rediscover their one-kilo-per-day hog?
According to Anita Hoofs, feeding hogs nowadays should be averaging a daily weight gain of around 1,000 grams. "The genetic potential is definitely there. In fact, 10 years ago we were hitting this target in hog feeding barns in the best commercial Dutch production units," recalls this scientist who works at the Sterksel Swine Innovation Centre, part of Wageningen University Animal Sciences Group. "But then we had disease problems and of course the European Union ban on feed antibiotics. Since the start of the millennium, our national average has been nearer 800 grams with no great change over the last years."
The current Dutch weight gain is around the same as in Scandinavia, but much better than middle European countries. In Germany, the figure is between 650 and 750 grams. Anita Hoofs says her unit has pinpointed the factor most influencing later hog performance. This is weight at birth, a statistic which has been dropping in line with increasing litter sizes the world over.
Heavier newborn piglets mean survival rates are also dramatically boosted, notes Hoofs. "You're better with 14 healthy 1.5-kilogram piglets in a litter. Our results show that over 90 per cent of these will survive and reach slaughter weight 10 days before lighter piglets. But litters are still getting bigger. Just last week we had a sow give us 18 piglets. These were much smaller piglets and, naturally, mean a lot more work."
Other results reported from Sterksel show that heavier piglets generally don't waste time getting to the udder. Trial results indicate that more piglets from 1.25 to 1.75 kilograms birth weight get a first drink of colostrum within 100 minutes of birth and thus have greatly increased survival odds. If piglets are under one kilogram liveweight and miss the 100-minute deadline, then losses can be as much as 40 per cent, a result that also shows how crucial it is to supervise an early colostrum drink for lightweight piglets.
Results from the 300-sow commercial hybrid herd at the Swine Innovation Centre show that piglets weighing 1.8 kilograms or more at birth have a top survival rate of 94 per cent on average. Lifetime daily weight gain is 619 grams and days to slaughter at around 110 kilograms liveweight average 182. And one last figure from this Dutch research institute: based on present-day production prices, one kilogram extra weight at birth equals $7.70 more margin per slaughter hog. BP