Amino Acids Can Enhance Pig Robustness
Highlights Average daily gain and feed efficiency in diseased pigs may be improved by a combination of functional amino acids supplemented above requirements for growth Functional amino acids improved the immune response associated with Salmonella infection Bacterial shedding and intestinal colonization can be reduced by...
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Ken Engele
Recipe for Sow Nutrition: Just Add Milk
By Geoff Geddes, for Swine Innovation Porc They say “it’s not how you start in life; it’s how you finish.” Then again, “they” never met a milk-deprived piglet. Fortunately, researchers understand that a strong beginning is essential to piglet development, and milk plays a huge role in sows starting their...
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Ken Engele
Effects of Enrichment Objects on Piglet Growth and Behaviour
The purpose of this study was to perform an initial evaluation of pigs’ preferences for several enrichment objects and examine their effects on piglet growth and welfare during the nursery period. Thirty litters were selected at farrowing and assigned to three treatments: enrichment provided post-weaning (EN), enrichment provided both pre- and post-weaning...
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Ken Engele
Science Helps Hogs to the Finish(ing) Line
By Geoff Geddes, for Swine Innovation Porc To succeed in pork production, you must consider a range of factors and how they interact, and dealing with low energy feed is a perfect example. Previous research has found that low, constant net energy (NE) diets for grow-finish pigs provide a better return...
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Ken Engele
High Fibre Diets – Satiety in Sows and Offspring Growth Performance
Feeding high fiber diets to sows during gestation is reported to play a positive role in the swine industry both in terms of animal welfare (improved satiety in feed-restricted pregnant sows) and production (increased weaning weight) during the gestation-lactation period. This study was designed to determine the effect of hydrothermal processing...
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Ken Engele
Pretreatment of Feed Ingredients to Enhance Value
Grains are typically harvested at <15% moisture to maintain quality during storage. When harvested at >15%, artificial drying may be employed but this increases cost. Low-quality high-moisture grains may also be preserved by acidification. These experiments were conducted with the overall objective of determining whether the benefits of acidification on performance and...
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Ken Engele
Group Sow Housing
The National Sow Housing Conversion Project (NSHCP) was a Canada-wide project with the purpose of providing group sow housing information to swine producers and industry partners. For more information please click on the image below. ...
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Ken Engele
Evaluation of a Prototype Air-Filtered Transport Trailer
In response to the need by the industry for a livestock vehicle that addresses increased animal welfare and biosecurity during transport, a prototype air-filtered trailer was developed. Design parameters were gathered from a stakeholders’ survey and initial design configuration options were narrowed down using computer simulation. The final design featured a trailer...
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Ken Engele
Interaction of Dietary Fibre and Immune Challenge on Threonine Requirements and Pig Robustness
Sub-clinical disease results in reduced growth and less efficient use of nutrients. With the elimination of in-feed antibiotics for growth promotion it is increasingly important to understand the interaction between nutrition and health and nutrient requirements during disease challenge events. This project set out to more fully understand the interaction between dietary...
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Ken Engele
Development of a Commercial Scale Air Treatment System
An air cleaning technology based on biotrickling filtration developed in previous phases of the project was scaled up and tested at the PSC swine grower-finisher facility. Results showed that the air treatment units were effective in reducing the levels of ammonia, dust, and odour from the air stream at...
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Ken Engele