Managing Feeding to Reduce Feed Wastage in Lactation
The largest cost associated with producing pork is feed. Feed wastage and spoilage may occur in lactating sows as they can be fed up to three times a day to maximize litter performance and feed intake. Electronic feeding systems are now commonly used as they...
How do you Decide Whether to Adopt New Technology?
Things to consider when deciding to purchase new technology include productivity impacts, implementation and maintenance costs, manager and worker preferences, animal handling and food safety regulations. Worker health and safety should be strongly considered as well. Health and safety evaluations of new technologies are being...
Effectively Assessing Barn Renovations
A checklist is provided to help make objective barn investment decisions for renovations. Walk around your barn with a flashlight, a ladder and some tools to assess equipment. Four areas that are considered in this checklist are biosecurity, utilities, operation and structural. Walk the barn,...
Fermented Soybean Meal for Newly Weaned Piglets
Soybean meal is limited in its inclusion into young piglets diets as it contains a variety of anti-nutritional factors. Fermentation of soybean meal improves digestibility of nutrients, including amino acids, though variability occurs in this process. This experiment compared fermented soybean meal to standard soy...
Piglet Health and Welfare in the Nursery
Weaning causes piglets to experience acute stress due to sudden changes in the social group, the environment and in diet. It often leads to aggression, weight loss, diarrhea, belly nosing and disease. Weaning in intensive farm units is much different from wild pigs. Stimulating early...
Compounding Iron Dextran with NSAIDs at Processing
NSAIDs are often given at processing along with iron dextran and it is tempting to given them together to reduce the number of injections to the piglet. Mixing these products is not allowed under the Canadian Assurance program, though it does happen occasionally so possible...
Using Exploratory Behaviour to Increase Pre-Weaning Creep Consumption
Previous experiments showed how feeder type but not enrichment resulted in a greater frequency of visits to the tray feeder and a higher rate of disappearance for creep feed. Creep feed is important as it may help with the stressful transition of weaning and the...
Managing Sows in Groups from Weaning: Are There Advantages?
Stall housing has received lots of criticism for being so restrictive. It has been demonstrated that sows in groups can perform as well as those in stalls, so gestation stalls are being banned in many countries. An area that needs to be studied is how...
Can Flaxseed Replace Antibiotics in Nursery Diets?
Social, nutritional and environmental stressors are involved in weaning and can activate an immune response in piglets. To solve this, they are often fed a low level of antibiotics. This is being phased out by Health Canada so alternative strategies are needed to help the...
Geothermal Systems for Heating in Pork Production
Energy costs are increasing over the years and costs can be very high, especially in cold climates. 80% of the energy used in swine barns in Saskatchewan is for heating and ventilation costs. A geothermal system uses ground heat and may be a better option....
Effect of Grouping Sows by Parity in ESF Housing on Welfare and Productivity
Grouping of sows is important to have increased fitness and freedom but if done improperly, limited access to feed and aggression can be apparent. Electronic feeding systems (ESF) decrease aggression by sows having limited feeding competition, but young sows may still have to fight for...
Successfully Feeding Lentils to Finishing Pigs
The world's leading exporter and second largest producer of lentils is Saskatchewan. If 10% of lentil production is not acceptable for export, there would be plenty to feed pigs. Nutritional values were measured and diets were formulated for growing and finishing pigs. The maximum inclusion...