Sows go that extra mile for soft footing

Monday, October 6, 2014

In a German trial, given the choice, loose-housed sows prefer rubberized walkways to concrete, even if it meant travelling farther to the feeding station

by NORMAN DUNN

It seems that swine choose comfortable rubberized walkways to the feeding station – even where much shorter routes across bare concrete are available.

Germany's State Education and Research Centre for swine production (LSZ) at Boxberg is already well known in Europe for its work on rubber matting for sow lying areas. In this respect, researcher Stefanie Baumann demonstrated a significant preference amongst loose-housed dry sows for the softer alternative to bare concrete slats. Baumann also reported that, in her trial, the sows adopted the fully stretched side-lying position on soft rubber matting in 74.1 per cent of the cases.

Three lying area surfaces were actually tested at Boxberg – bare concrete, hard rubber and soft rubber – in a loose-housing barn for dry sows with observation over 18 breeding cycles via video monitoring for a seven-day period each cycle. In total, 53.6 per cent of sows chose the soft rubber matting, 38.1 per cent the hard rubber flooring and 8.3 per cent the bare concrete laying areas. The telling point was that the sows became increasingly fond of the softer alternative, starting with an average 45.6 per cent lying on bare concrete, a percentage that diminished steadily through the trial.

The logical step by the Boxberg researcher was to look at flooring surface preferences for movement with dry sows. To test this, a 60-centimetre-wide path surfaced with perforated rubber matting was established from the lying area to the feeding station in a dry sow barn with loose housing for 60 sows at a time.

Three different routes for the high-comfort path were tried out at separate periods (four cycles per variant) with 320 hours of video recording for each route. The first path was a direct one, straight over the bare slats to the barn automatic feeding station. The second route was very indirect: following the extreme boundaries of the slatted flooring from lying area to feeding station. The third made a detour through the dunging and activity area.

The results showed that the sows always preferred the rubber pathway – even when it represented the most roundabout route to the feeding station. The downside found by the Boxberg trial is that sows also preferred the rubber pathways for defecating on – in 85 per cent of all cases, and usually with all four feet on the path. Because the rubber matting was perforated, this caused no serious cleaning problems and the pathways remained relatively non-slip with no increases in skidding and falling noted.  

Algae production: good for the planet and high in protein
There's no doubt about the quality of algae protein and its amino acid range, or of the environmental advantages of producing what could be an excellent soya-substitute on waste water instead of fertile farmland. But algae food and feed components don't come cheap. The costs involved can often be many times more when compared with soybean meal. A main problem is that production is still too small-scale.

As a feed ingredient, algae offers a lot. Average figures calculated by researchers at Swansea University in Wales put the crude protein content of the main types of algae already farmed at from 50 to 60 per cent, with soybean meal at around 44 per cent. The Swansea researchers also note that scientific literature attributes many more advantages for feed algae – for instance, as a good source of carbohydrates, vitamins and minerals. Antiviral, antibacterial and immune system boosting properties are often claimed too.

One type of algae already used in aquaculture feed, red gracilaria, costs up to the equivalent of C$1,175 a ton after culturing, processing and drying. At the time of this 2011 comparison, soybean meal was costing around $367 a ton in Europe. Scaling-up production could drive down the price of this potentially valuable hog feed ingredient; it could also become cheaper if it could earn credits for reducing greenhouse gases during its production.

Wattenfall, one of Europe's largest power production organizations, is working on the development of large-scale feed algae production at coal-fired power plants because this offers a good way of using and absorbing the vast amounts of CO² otherwise released into the atmosphere. A daughter firm, GMB, teamed up with the Berlin-based FIM Biotech and established what it describes as a "cost-efficient, rapid and environmentally friendly process producing valuable feed protein."

Another partnership between Technical University of Applied Sciences Wildau in Lower Saxony, Germany, and one of the state's largest agricultural biogas producers, AEO, this year launched what it calls a photobioreactor to improve its algae production. The system, says Wildau, utilizes sunlight, plus the heat and CO² generated in biogas production, to produce green algae for use in feed with a "harvest" every six to 10 days. "The protein and fat percentages within the algae are very high," says project leader Professor Franz-Xaver Wildenauer.

Just as important for the participants in this concept is the way the process absorbs CO² emissions from biogas production. Hog producers in Germany, where generous government subsidies have helped create 8,000 biogas plants, are already speaking about great synergy possibilities for reducing climate change while ensuring a higher-quality and, perhaps in the end, lower-cost substitute for soybean meal in hog feed.

Denmark and Germany experiment with diluting sperm
The swine breeding sectors in Germany and Denmark recently considered the economics of diluting sperm population per AI dose, but both countries have opted for their customary counts after practical experience at lower rates.

The Ascheberg Swine Improvement Co-operative (GFS) in the northwest of Germany reduced sperm numbers per dose from this country's customary 1.8 billion to 1.5 billion during part of 2013. In June 2013, 22,039 sows were served with the reduced dose. In terms of piglets per litter, results were actually slightly better than some previous results (with 1.8 billion sperm per dose). ZDF, the national swine breeding organization, has decided to stay with the 1.8 billion dose, noting that this provides a good safety margin. Anyhow, points out the ZDF, along with sperm numbers, the main efficiency factor in AI is good sperm motility for at least 65 per cent of the dose 72 hours after collection from the boar.

Further north, the Danish Pig Research Centre prefers a minimum sperm population of two billion per AI dose, but also looked at the effects of reducing this by 25 per cent. Large-scale trials show, however, that there is an average loss of around 0.2 piglets per litter with the lower dose compared with the normal one.  

The swine sector volunteers a stop-castration strategy
A future without castration for male hogs is a certainty now in Europe. The simple operation traditionally carried out on the farm should be banned altogether by Jan. 1, 2018, according to the main players in the sector – the European farmers' unions, meat processors, veterinary organizations and the welfare lobby.

Meanwhile, castration without anaesthetic may well be stopped in the Netherlands from the beginning of 2015 and in Germany two years later. Spain has already halted boar hog castration altogether in some regions. Denmark was one of the first countries to try out marketing pork from entire males fed to over 90 kilograms. That was way back in the 1980s. But the development was quickly stopped after claims that boar taint was driving the customers away from the meat shelves.

Now, the government in Copenhagen has awarded the equivalent of C$1.4 million for research into boar taint and improving ways of identifying it on the slaughter line. At the same time, more rearing and feeding of entire males is to be encouraged for the domestic market. But the ministry of agriculture stipulates that all boar meat must from now on be clearly identified on the labelling.

The surprising aspect of the envisaged total castration ban in 2018 is that it is to be voluntary. European Union (EU) authorities in Brussels have helped set up the deal but, so far, there's no talk of legislation. The swine sector seems fairly confident that consumer pressure will force the change on its own. The revolution is causing little stir in the United Kingdom, where most farmers don't castrate anyway, boars being slaughtered at 75 kilograms liveweight and therefore before full maturity and the associated taint danger.

It could be that a good proportion of Dutch producers will take this route, too. A German-Dutch pork sector meeting at the turn of the year heard Ben Dellaert, secretary of the Dutch meat sector organization PVV, say: "In the Netherlands, raising young boars is considered the best alternative to castration. Forty per cent of male hogs are already no longer castrated and farmers are profiting from faster hog growth and a higher lean meat percentage."

Naturally, all players involved are calling for a standard system of identifying "boar taint" on the slaughter line. Trained human "sniffers" are doing a pretty good job in certain slaughterhouses at the moment, according to the industry. Electronic "noses" have also been developed for this purpose. "But we want techniques agreed upon on a European level," argues Frans van Dongen from the Dutch Product Board for Livestock, Meat and Eggs (PVE). He adds that a pan-Europe approach here would mean joint funding of additional research with a full solution that has a better chance of being accepted in all countries.  

Where the pork industry infrastructure has been built around much heavier hogs – for instance, an average 110 kilogram liveweight at slaughter in Germany or even heavier in Italy for Parma ham – it's recognized that there's going to be big resistance to stopping castration. Italy has already negotiated that castration be continued past the EU deadline for its ham production sector.

Denmark, where hogs are slaughtered at an average 105 kilograms liveweight, made it plain earlier this year that its sector wanted to continue castration of boars right up to the 2018 deadline. Danish scientists at Aarhus University were in fact commissioned by the EU to look into realistic alternatives. In a report published this summer, Bent Borg Jensen, research head at the university's department of animal science, cautions that sticking to entire male production, with boar taint risk reduced through a strategy of diet, breed selection, management and housing, could take up to five years to get right for practical application.

He says an eye would have to be kept on animal welfare, too, because of possible increased aggression and mounting with entire males. This welfare problem also occurs where immunocastration is used, points out Dr. Jensen. Sperm sexing for mostly female hog production and breeding out the danger of boar taint were both promising longer-term aims, according to the Danish researchers.

Maybe selection for no taint is realistic. But this writer has been reporting the faltering developments in sperm sexing on the European scene for the last three decades and, despite recurring announcements that the strategy was ready for commercialization, no commercial solution has transpired. In other words, don't hold your breath for sperm sexing to become a cost-efficient alternative to castration in the near future. BP