Serving thin sows: wait a week and win an extra hog?
Thursday, October 10, 2013
Dutch researchers have found that, for sows in poor condition, later service seems to offer better returns from the next litter. But, as always, the best solution is keeping nursing sows in good condition.
by NORMAN DUNN
Most hog producers know the story only to well: when a sow loses too much condition during suckling, it can be difficult to get her back into pig. On the other hand, a successful service right after weaning with a too-thin sow means the litter arrives right on time, but often with poor piglet weights and lack of uniformity.
Could it be better to delay service for a week or so after weaning until the sow has more meat on her back? This is a question being looked into by Dutch researchers from the Swine Innovation Centre (VIC) at Sterksel, part of the University of Wageningen. A computer search covering 1,800 sow records (Topigs 20 and Topigs 40 sows) allowed breeding performance, sow condition and piglet birth weights to be collected and analyzed.
Sure enough, the results showed that, with sows in relatively poor condition, a delay of over seven days after weaning for service brought an average 1.2 live piglets extra per litter compared with the results from service in the first week.
The extra piglet advantage applied on average for all services from day eight to 21 post-weaning, according to the VIC analyses. These also showed that, if conception was even later (21 days or more post-weaning), litter uniformity was improved. Here too, there was an advantage in litter size over first-week service, but a lower one at 0.7 piglets on average. This pattern seems to be constant whatever the age of sow.
Naturally, the Dutch researchers remind us, the best route to take in this respect when targeting optimal litter sizes with uniform weights is ensuring that sows do not lose too much condition during nursing.
Denmark looks at wider crates offering easier udder access
More space for the crated farrowing sow and improved access for suckling piglets have increased piglet weight at weaning by an average 300 grams in a large-scale Danish trial. On top of this, the welfare crates, with 30 per cent more floor space, left the sows with fewer shoulder lesions. And there was no sign of the expected increase in piglet mortality through trampling and crushing.
While Switzerland, Norway and Sweden have effectively banned continual crating of suckling sows, most other European farm sectors remain uneasy about the effect on piglet mortality from unrestrained sows. Denmark, for instance, with a wary eye on the powerful animal welfare lobbies threatening their pork export industry, continues to invest large amounts of time and effort into developing "free-farrowing" systems. But this country, which has the largest average sow production figures in the world (29.6 weaners per sow and year), certainly hasn't given up the farrowing crate concept.
Instead, scientists there are looking at, among other options, wider crates with more access for sucklers and extra movement possibilities for the sow. Lisbeth Brogaard-Petersen is head of research into housing and housing environments at the Danish Research Center for Pig Production and this scientist has just completed three years of research into the effects of offering more space at the bottom of the crate for sow and suckling litter. "We wanted improved access to the udder for piglets as well as more movement for the sow herself. But at the same time we stayed with the standard farrowing pen size in our country – around 255 centimetres long and 165-166 centimetres wide," she explains.
Trials in two commercial herds covered a total of 473 farrowings with comparisons made between a crate design with more conventional measurements (made by Danish manufacturer AP) and the AP Welfare Crate which offers more room. Both types of crate come with adjustable widths at the rear gate with a maximum 75 centimetres available.
Brogaard-Petersen points out that Danish farrowing pens with their asymmetrically positioned crates differ from layouts in most other countries, where the crate often tends to be fixed equidistant from pen sides. The conventional Danish design means there's a lot less room for the piglets on the other side of the crate from their creep.
Both types of crate in the Danish trial are around 200 centimetres long, measured from the sow trough inner edge to the rear gate. The five vertical fingers attached to each side of the bottom horizontal bar of the welfare crate are splayed widely outwards to offer easier access to the sow udder compared with the conventional AP crate, which also features five vertical piglet protection fingers on each side, although these are not so widely splayed.
With the welfare crate, the lowest horizontal tubes are also set higher than those on the conventional crate. Breadth at the widest point of the welfare cage, measured 25 centimetres above the farrowing pen floor, is a maximum 117 centimetres. The manufacturers also claim that the extra space in the welfare version means the sow tends to lie down more slowly for suckling, possibly saving piglet-crushing injuries and deaths in this way.
"Certainly, there was no difference in piglet mortality with the perhaps less protective welfare crate," admits Lisbeth Petersen. "But the increased access to the sow udder did not result in the expected increase in litter weight at weaning."
This does not mean there was absolutely no increase in piglet performance: weaning weight was actually 300 grams heavier on average for the piglets suckled in the welfare crate. "But this is not a statistically significant gain," warns the research team leader. The greater shoulder area width within the welfare crates is reckoned to be the reason for a lower incidence of sow shoulder lesions.
Brogaard-Petersen also notes that there were no signs that first-time farrowers had tried to turn round in the somewhat wider crates. "On the other hand, we have to admit that, on both the trial farms, gilts have experience of gestation crates for short periods at servicing, so they had at least some experience of this sort of constraint."
Canola pork captures more market share in Scandinavia
Rypsiporsas is Finnish for rapeseed pork. It's also a brand name north European consumers are hearing a lot more often nowadays.
Based on decades of breeding and feeding trials, Rypsiporsas and Rapsgris, the brand name for a similar range of rapeseed pork products from hogs in Sweden, are not only selling well, they're actually responsible for slowing down a year-long decline in pork prices and sales. The Finnish food giant HKScan (net annual sales in 2012: C$3.44 billion) already sells the successful NGHampshire branded pork in the U.K. and Scandinavia, a success reported in an earlier "Eye on Europe" article this year.
Now, the company is also marketing rapeseed pork, managing co-operations with feed compounders so that special rations with higher contents of low-glucosinolate rapeseed are supplied to contracted hog producers. The resultant pork is then marketed as high-health meat with more polyunsaturated fats such as omega 3 and less unhealthy saturated fats. Tasting panels in Sweden and Finland have also found the rapeseed pork is juicier, more tender and tastier.
Rapsgris products were first marketed in Sweden only in 2012 but sold well throughout the summer as a featured item in the menus of quality restaurants, reports HKScan's Thomas Perkiö. By autumn, the rapeseed pork products were in the stores and supermarkets.
In Finland, work with omega 3 oils in hog feed in order to uprate the nutritional value of pork has a longer history. Researchers there have been toiling to uprate omega3 levels in pork for around 40 years now.
In both countries, the claimed higher quality of the pork might be earning a small premium on the store floor, but first reports indicate the farmers producing the pork get little of this extra cash. What they do get, according to advisers in those countries, is a more reliable outlet for their production in a market that has been otherwise shrinking for years. And this security is backed by solid contracts from HKScan.
There are strict production rules. For instance, only feed from approved compounders is allowed in the rapeseed pork rations. Finnish grain and rapeseed must be used for Rypsiporsas and likewise only Swedish inputs are allowed for Rapsgris pork products.
In 2012, Rypsiporsas pork went into more than 150 different meat products, according to HKScan. In Sweden, the current target for rapeseed pork hogs is 200,000 head, which is around eight per cent of the slaughter hog total this year.
Adventure playgrounds aim to reduce stress for Dutch hogs
The latest concept from VarkensNET in the Netherlands seems more like a porker playground than anything we would normally associate with a weaner/grower pen. VarkensNET is a working group of scientists from Wageningen University which has teamed up with farmers to thresh out new ideas for swine housing. The idea behind this particular design is to allow hogs' expression of natural behaviour and thus reduce stress and profit-paring injuries, says VarkensNET.
The so-called "robust pen" is initially designed for single litters. Down in the feeding/dunging basement, the floor is part-slatted with closed-off lying areas with separate climate and lighting set-ups.
Perhaps the most imaginative contribution to weaner welfare is the concept of a portable piglet creep carried with each litter from the farrowing pen straight into the weaner/grower accommodation with the aim of reducing weaning stress and combating the usual dip in weight gain at this time.
Other facilities include a fairly steep ramp up to the second storey to give the weaners some real exercise. Up top, there's a solid-floored movement area.
The Dutch scientists involved in the novel robust pen say the main aim is to reduce stress for the growing hogs by giving the animals a variety of environments to explore. First results in commercial surroundings indicate that the hogs do indeed develop well in their adventure playground with less aggression and bigger appetites. BP