Three-week weaning: little advantage and a lot of worry!

Tuesday, June 3, 2014

The European Union wants all hog farmers to give up three-week weaning and adopt a suckling period of at least 28 days. Latest research indicates this route can be less stressful for managers – and just as productive in the longer term

by NORMAN DUNN

Backing up many hog breeders' feeling that the shorter period between litters with 21-day weaning is a theoretical advantage only are results from a 97,000 breeding cycle survey in north Germany.

Using its extensive herd performance recordings from 2013, the Uelzen Swine Breeding and Feeding Association (VzF), which collectively produces three millions hogs per year, found that a 28-day system produced a farrowing rate to first service of 88.6 per cent compared with 87.5 per cent for 21-day weaning. More piglets were produced and 49 per cent of those sows and gilts suckling their litters longer came back into heat more rapidly (an average of four days after weaning).

The length of weaning period is giving rise to some sharp tussles on the European scene. Those managing a tight ship still insist that the earlier weaning gives a theoretical 2.4, or even slightly more, litters per year. But the majority of herd managers point to a shorter productive lifetime for these high performers, with some observers putting this at just four litters before leaving the herd. 

There's also an increased number of non-production days (NPD) to pencil in for the three-week weaners. And this last factor slashes by at least half the extra piglets theoretically produced. Interestingly, European Union legislation has championed the four-week suckling regime for years. In fact, the respective animal welfare law stipulates that "no piglets may be weaned before 28 days."

During creation of the legislation, this caused such a furore and pressure from farmers' unions that a second sentence quickly joined the first, saying: "But weaning up to seven days earlier is allowed if the piglets are moved to specialized housing away from sows." In other words, into completely normal hog production facilities. While large units, in Germany and Spain in particular, still tend to favour three-week weaning, Denmark and some other member countries have introduced national legislation stipulating a minimum of four weeks at the udder.

Extra calcium helps boost piglet survival at birth
Which actions at farrowing have the most positive influence on numbers surviving? Setting out to establish a concrete basis for advice in this respect, Prof. Steffen Hoy and a team from Giessen University's Institute for Animal Breeding and Genetics in Germany set up a series of trials on commercial farms with a total of 1,300 sows. Tested were the effects of giving sows supplemental calcium before farrowing, intensifying monitoring and care, and continual adjustment of farrowing crate height. Among other possible influences looked at, but found not to make too much of a difference, were farrowing pen flooring materials and dosing very young piglets with energy paste.

The farms taking part are far from middle-of-the-road units, their born alive results being between 13 and 14 per litter and under 15 per cent mortality to weaning. But the aim throughout Europe is to whack this early mortality figure down to 12 or even 10 per cent. Here's where this latest practical trial produced some useful results. Probably the most interesting outcome sprang from dosing older sows with calcium prior to farrowing.

Sows in well-managed herds tend to live a good bit longer than the average three or four farrowings, the worrying norm for many big European units nowadays. But longer productive life nearly always results in weaker contractions during farrowing, with the process of birth sometimes stalling altogether.

This trait becomes really noticeable with many commercial hybrids after the fifth farrowing, according to advisers, and the longer birth action steeply increases the number of piglets either dead or left very weak at birth. Extra calcium in the diet is already known to strengthen sow contractions.

This is why one of the Giessen trials singled out 29 sows on one farm with more than five farrowings behind them and supplemented their rations with a twice-daily dose of 25 grams of monocalcium phosphate (plus five grams of endotoxin binder). Comparing their farrowing performance with a similar number of older sows receiving no supplementary calcium, the researchers noted that the average born dead figure with untreated sows was double that of the sows receiving extra calcium (2.35 against 1.17).

Also extremely successful proved to be more monitoring of the farrowing process. In one 700-sow unit taking part in the overall trial, the standard procedure involved staff closing up the 32-pen farrowing house at 5 p.m. and going home. Probably because induced farrowing is part of the routine there. With most litters born during the working day, the born dead – or very early deaths – averaged just 1.03 piglets per farrowing.

To discover if this could be improved, the trial introduced a skilled stockperson over a five-week spell on monitoring duty from 5 to 9 p.m. on the main farrowing day each week. The piglets born in this period during the evening were rubbed dry and the weak ones massaged to get them breathing properly and then laid at an available teat.

Other actions: active help with difficult or slow births, clearing piglets' airways, shortening and disinfecting umbilical cords, freeing youngsters tangled in the placenta, etc. The helper noted any piglets he thought had been saved by such actions, these records being used to estimate the advantages of actually being on the spot. Averaged out over the five weeks there were a definite 22 piglets saved through active birth help or moving them away from acute crushing danger. Under the bottom line, an extra half piglet per farrowing was saved which, in this herd, led to a calculated extra profit per year of C$6,600 equivalent, after subtracting the labour costs for evening monitoring.

The other real performer in improving piglet production – regular adjustment of farrowing crate height above floor – didn't actually save piglet lives. But it proved to have a powerful influence on weight gain performance to weaning. The lower the bottom bar (often obstructing the upper row of teats for the piglets), the less milk the piglets consumed.

With over 2,500 piglets involved in this test on two farms, the bottom rail of the crates varied from 22 centimetres or less above the pen floor to 28 centimetres. The worst average piglet performance over four weeks was a daily liveweight gain of 198 grams from the litter suckling where the bar was lowest. The best group's average weight gain was 14 per cent better, and the piglets there were in pens with the highest-positioned crates at 28 centimetres above floor level.

The researchers caution that the best answer here is to balance piglet protection and crate level by keeping an eye on litter development and adjusting height when required for easier access to the udder. But the main advantage underlined by these practical trials was definitely from monitoring farrowing. It's just a pity that this performance-boosting measure is also potentially the most expensive one in terms of time and labour costs, although the University of Giessen experience shows that it still brings extra profit at the end of the day.

Conveyor belt production comes to hog farming
What Europeans are already calling "conveyor belt hog farming" could be the next evolution in intensive swine production. The "Hy-Care" concept from equipment manufacturer MS Schippers in the Netherlands involves sows farrowing within plastic containers resembling big 2.6 x 1.9 metre polyethylene basins – and the litter remaining in the same container until 25 kilograms liveweight.

Containers are fitted on giant conveyor systems that keep sow and litter for four weeks in one acclimatized area before the sow and farrowing crate is removed and the container with litter is moved into another area for the weaning to the 25-kilogram stage. The bottom of the basin will incorporate a system for manure removal, says the manufacturer.

But the pens will be in motion right through this period with repeated trips on the conveyor system to a special treatment station in the complex for veterinary inspection, castration, earmarking and vaccination. The manufacturer claims that the system will be fully computer-controlled within a cycle that includes an automatic wash complex for thorough disinfecting of the smooth-walled, and therefore hygienic, plastic containers once the 25-kilogram hogs have been emptied out for rehousing.

Dutch government officials were present at the launch of the concept, which has input from the University of Wageningen Swine Innovation Centre at Sterksel. They heard developer Mark Schippers say the farrow-to-25-kilogram single pen concept was the key to a future swine production with more hygiene, less use of antibiotics and better animal welfare. There would be, he said, no stress from mixing with other hogs and greatly reduced danger of contact with any germs from outside the litter environment.

It is also understood that the movable plastic pens on their conveyor system can be stacked in at least two tiers within the acclimatized housing to further save space. The first commercial complex with reusable plastic pens and conveyor railing system will be launched in the Netherlands in 2015, according to the company.

There are a number of advantages to the one-litter, one-container concept.

• Complete disinfection before each farrowing;
• Litter members in the same group from birth to 25 kilograms;
• Automatic shipment to specialized "surgery" for all treatments without leaving the pen;
• Efficient railway-based system with computer control;
• Draught-free containers with smooth plastic walls and rounded corners for easiest cleaning.

German supermarkets prepared to pay more for hog welfare
German hog producers look to be scooping up at least C$150 million per year in welfare bonuses through a new agreement between farmers, slaughterhouses and the retail trade. The so-called "initiative for welfare" was kicked off by the biggest supermarkets in the country last year (2013). Just some of the probable reasons:

• More attention in the press to animal welfare issues;
• An annual two kilogram drop in consumption of pork per person, although this still stands at an impressive 39 kilograms;
• A reported doubling of adult vegetarians in Germany over the past 12 months to 3.5 per cent of the 80 million population.

It's notable that the initiative-for-welfare program has absolutely no input from the government or the European Union. And the retail sector says it has no plans to label the pork produced under it in any special way. The initiative program is to be entirely voluntary, with all the necessary cash coming directly from stores that currently represent 75 per cent (on a turnover basis) of all meat sales in Germany. The initiative is also supported by nearly all main slaughterhouse and processing companies.

Recruiting for support continues at time of writing. By May 2014, an administrative organization was to be in place, according to the prime movers who include Europe's top discounters Aldi and Lidl. By fall, farmers who meet the welfare criteria will be asked to sign supply contracts. The first deliveries of German welfare initiative hogs were to begin by Jan. 15.

Participating units must be accredited under the national quality meat production "QS-System." This program includes mandatory full documentation of veterinary treatments and feed origins. Farmers must also allow annual inspections of their farms and records, which include monitoring of all antibiotic use and slaughterhouse carcass assessments. Other controls will be compulsory for hoghouse ventilation and drinking-water quality.

Meeting all these and other requirements ensures acceptance into the initiative-for-welfare scheme under a three-year supply contract with a basic annual bonus equivalent to $750 per farm. Hog feeders can then choose between 11 other welfare components, each of which carry additional bonus payments – for instance, floor space per hog over the current legal minimum in Germany (0.4 square metres for 30-50 kilograms liveweight, 0.55 square metres for 50-85 kilograms, 0.65 square metres for 85-110 kilograms and one square metre for each hog 110 kilograms and over). Ten per cent more space earns a bonus equivalent to $4.20 per hog carcass, while 20 per cent more space brings $6 and 40 per cent adds $12 extra per carcass.

Other available bonuses include $3 per animal if roughage, such as hay or straw, is on offer. No castration of feeders brings $3.25 per hog and, if tails are left entire, an extra $9 per hog can be earned.

After the feeding hog program is under way, a similar scheme for sows, piglets and growers will be introduced, say the organizers. By year three (2018), they expect around 10,000 hog producers to be finishing around 20 million hogs per year (45 per cent of total German production) under the welfare scheme.

The scheme's launch has not come without criticism. Animal welfare and environmental protection organizations do not like the idea of no state participation and therefore no state control. The critics also want clear labelling of the resulting products.

One point is already clear: the retailers will want their investment in welfare back from the general public and this will mean higher prices in the stores. Will consumers pay those? Experience from the results of the partly illusionary demand for organic foods in Germany in the 1990s isn't too encouraging. Then, demand for homegrown "bio" products quickly wilted when it became apparent that retail prices for pork were more than 30 per cent over conventional cuts. This hints that there's probably a fairly rocky road ahead for the well-meant swine welfare initiative.

An extra earner on the farm – plus free fertilizer

This year, one of the United Kingdom's biggest swine farmers (with over 6,000 sows) is launching a feeding hog contract for crop producers. The company is JSR Farming, part of the GSR Genetics group, which exports breeding stock worldwide. Back home in Yorkshire, JSR owns around 9,400 acres of cropping land and its own slaughter hog production units.

Expansion for this sector of the JSR business entails keeping control of all breeding units. But the company wants to contract out hog feeding, offering long-term production deals based on 1,000-place units on crop-growing farms with no other livestock enterprises.

Philip Huxtable, a technical director with the company, says this features a low-risk investment for the croppers. "Based on 1,000-places, you can earn after costs a margin of £31,000 (C$56,700) per year, with payback on capital investment in six to eight years."

Given the soaring price of artificial fertilizer, a real enticement for arable farmers is all the resultant manure available for free – including ammonium-N, just right for maximizing cropping returns. JSR's experience with its own feeding hog units over the last nine years includes a boost averaging a quarter ton per acre for winter wheat, and up to half a ton in dry years.

The JSR contracts mean crop farmers will be responsible for labour, buildings and energy and water, while hogs, feed and all veterinary and management support come from the breeders. BP