AGRIBUSINESS: 4 piglet parameters for lifetime performance.

             AGRIBUSINESS: 4 piglet parameters for lifetime performance.

 Genetic selection is leading to larger litters of piglets born with lowered levels of physiological maturity. As this trend amplifies an evolutionary strategy in swine favouring survival of the fittest, it presents negative performance and animal welfare implications.

 Sow Peripartal Syndrome is a complex web of interactions affecting sows and piglets during the peripartal period. At least four parameters are present at birth that can ultimately determine piglets’ lifetime performance.

The following is an update on research underway to managing the syndrome. Alive at birth While genetic selection has increased the total number of pigs per litter, the number of pigs born alive has not increased at the same pace.

Three-step approach for spotting sick sows .

A three-step approach for spotting sick sows. A three-pronged approach to observing sows can help identify illness, lower mortality and increase productivity. When more attention is given to pigs,taking a closer look during farrowing, gestation and lameness can reveal potential problems before they become serious.When staff are trained to look and respond to signs of sickness quickly, producers can improve animal well-being and their bottom line in one move. Farrowing watchfulness. Farm staff should regularly check to see how the gilt or sow adjusts to being in a farrowing crate and whether she is eating and drinking, cleaning the feeder, or is in distress. Most operations have someone in the room during the farrowing process, checking the sow regularly. If too much time passes between pigs being born (more than 20 or 30 minutes), someone should manually check the sow. Post-farrowing care. Make sure all the afterbirth has passed and that the sow is well and eating normally — especially during lactation,also check that sows are comfortable and monitor their body condition, especially at warmer times of the year. At some farms rectal temperature is checked routinely at 24 hours post-farrowing to make sure there is no residual complications and that she’s properly cleaned. Uterine infections will show up on temperatures of 103 degrees or more. If a sow has a high temperature, it will be put off from eating and drinking, which will affect milk production. Eliminate lameness. More than 50% of sow deaths are caused by lameness, but early intervention and aggressive treatment could reduce that figure significantly. In a 2,500-sow operation if you’re not treating 8 to 10 sows on a daily basis, you’re probably not treating enough. Lameness can be caused by housing, diseases, injury, nutrition, environmental issues or genetics. Check for sows that have difficulty standing or rising, and if animals shift their weight or tap their feet, look for swelling, cuts or bleeding. If an animal avoids the group or is walking slowly thats an indicator to check them out more closely.

How to reduce sow culling due to lameness.

How to reduce sow culling due to lameness.Lameness is a growing problem on swine farms with sows being culled from the herd in the most severe cases. The causes of lameness can be reduced and eliminated by following these simple tips. Lameness and hoof quality issues are becoming an increasingly common problem on a greater number of swine farms, leading to more culling of sows. Health problems associated with limb injuries are most common in bedding-free systems where uneven, wet and slippery floors increase the risk of both limb injuries and infections.#sows Lameness reflects pain of an injury . For example, incorrect slat widths in slatted floors can cause inflammation if hooves get stuck between them, resulting in abrasions or injuries. Analysis of hoof and limb condition in the sow herd, and the level of sow culling due to hoof and limb issues, provides us with important feedback on the correct husbandry and management of a herd, which directly impacts production efficiency. #sow How to reduce sow culling due to lameness.

INCREASE SOW PRODUCTIVITY WITH BETTER NUTRITION..

World pork production continues to rise year-by-year with increases in the number of pigs produced per sow, but the extra productivity also challenges every breeding herd to find feeding solutions for sows and piglets. The impact of nutrition on productivity cannot be overemphasized, thus balanced ration coupled with proper health management is efficient for productivity. The move for alternative protein source is also another factor to consider in piggery business. The cliche" garbage in garbage out" also hold true in pig production.

GENETICS AND PIG PRODUCTIVITY.

Improving genetic lines not only improves production but it creates disease free/resistant lines that maintains herd health and ensures profitability.A lot of pig producers sort and select breeds that will be stable in their environment and produce optimally,this they often do by importing breeding stocks or crossing various lines to come up with that that is suitable for their environment. A pig breeding network in Thai is producing genetic lines that are suitable and adaptable to Asian countries; The siam pigs run by Dr Sakchai Topanurak, Chulalongkorn University and major driving force behind SiamPigs. The goal of SiamPigs' is not only to improve production performance, but also to solve endemic and chronic herd health problems. This concept was borne out of the fact that Western pig breeds do not always come fully prepared for the Asian reality as they are full of various pathogens and different market needs,the need to select genetic lines that are resistant to disease and yielding higher lean meat percentages. The operations of breeding systems ensures a nucleus herd is free from diseases. Genetics from a high health breeding nucleus will subsequently be distributed to a production herd. Breeders lower in the breeding pyramid of course always try to keep their production herds as free from diseases as a nucleus herd would be – and also try to maintain similar high health standards, e.g. by applying strict bio security measures. This is done to enable the pigs to perform to their full genetic potential so that they can deliver effective and competitive products. SiamPigs, established in Thailand, is a network of pig producers using improved genetics, disease tolerant and disease resistant pigs as a tool. The group's goal is not only to improve production performance, but also to solve endemic and chronic herd health problems. Many pig farms have successfully reduced the risk of infection from outside the farm by applying a model that revolves around the principle of 'one nucleus, one farm' . SiamPigs developed its own breeds – Duroc line 929, Large White line 7788, Landrace line 4701 and Siam Kurobuta, with the productivity of the network's members being on par with the world's top producers. Farms in the network vary in size, starting from 400 to more than 10,000 sows. The network covers more than 100 farms in Thailand, with over 250,000 sows using breeding stock and semen developed by SiamPigs.

PIG PRODUCTIVITY WEBINAR.

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Webinar Improve Pig Productivity How to improve pig productivity? Can it be achieved by applying multi-phase feeding? Or choosing different climate solutions or perhaps looking at pig genetics? Find out ...

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Webinar Improve Pig Productivity

How to improve pig productivity? Can it be achieved by applying multi-phase feeding? Or choosing different climate solutions or perhaps looking at pig genetics? Find out more on February 9.

When aiming at the improvement of pig productivity, many solutions are usually focused on enhancing animal nutrition. After all, how could one more directly influence productivity than through feed? What is certain, however, is that there is a host of other options available as well. That is where our search begins on February 9. Pig Progress shall highlight several of these strategies in an exclusive webinar, brought to you live from Amsterdam, the Netherlands (CET 11.00 -12.00 am). The following speakers shall be sharing their views:

	1. Product Manager Pigs Ludo Bosschaerts: International, independent research has proven that multi-phase feeding produces better feed conversion ratio’s (FCR) and has a positive impact on average daily gain (ADG). A better retention of nutrients in the body has been found and a significant reduction in the production of manure, resulting in a lower expulsion of ammonium gasses into the environment. This Roxell concept results in a high return on investment.
	2. Merete Lyngbye, Master of Engineering, PhD, Director for Livestock Segment at Munters will speak about climate solutions to improve pig producers economy and environmental footprint.
	3. Benny van Haandel. Director/consultant at E-barn Solutions will give a presentation titled ‘Are our current pig genetics future proof?’ “How do new developments in various areas and markets affect the required characteristics of future top performing pigs?” ”

Hosted by Vincent ter Beek, editor of Pig Progress, the live webinar offers you the opportunity to exchange ideas with experts in real time.

Tuesday

9

February 2016

starts at 11:00 AM CET

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RBI Agri webinars

PORCINE HEALTH.

Yoghurt for stronger suckling piglets and sows.

Feeding yoghurt to suckling piglets, starting the day after birth improves the piglets’ feed intake in the first weeks of life. This results in higher weaning weights and higher growth rates after weaning. Also, the sows lose less weight during lactation and gain more weight during the following gestation. Large litters put a strain on the lactating sow, leading to impaired growth rate of her offspring. Sustaining a high level of milk production requires a lot of energy. With large litters, sows are unable to nurse their litters sufficiently to reach piglets’ genetic growth potential. Large litters often contain small piglets and it is a challenge to provide these small piglets with enough nutrients to increase survival rates, and reach adequate weaning weights and growth rates after weaning. A key factor to obtain healthy sows and piglets is a high feed intake of piglets in the suckling period. In order to meet the requirements of young piglets, Dutch animal nutrition company Sloten developed a new sustainable feeding concept, called Nuklospray Yoghurt. The yoghurt is fed in liquid form to suckling piglets, starting the day after birth. To prove that the concept improves the piglets’ feed intake in the first week of life and increases higher weaning weights and a higher growth rate after weaning, a study was performed in LZ Haus Düsse in Germany. The trial was conducted with 92 litters, divided into two groups: from day two after birth 49 litters received the yoghurt and 43 litters were offered another milk replacer. On the first day, 250 ml of the yoghurt (400 g powder per litre) was provided, and 500 ml of the control milk replacer (125 g powder per litre). The yoghurt was given during three weeks, while the control milk replacer was fed for two weeks. The offered amount of milk replacer during the suckling period increased up to 2.5 litres per litter per day. Piglets were subsequently offered a pre-starter (Milkiwean Granito Premium) in the yoghurt litters and a commercial pre starter in the control groups. The higher weaning weights and the lower mortality rate in the yoghurt litters were obtained by the higher intake of milk replacer and pre-starter. It shows that the yoghurt initiates early feed intThe improvements in piglet and sow performance with the yoghurt addition include: a higher feed intake of suckling piglets, less piglet mortality, higher weaning weights of litters, and better fertility and condition of sows. Read details of experiment here;http://www.pigprogress.net/Special-Focus/Piglet-Feeding/Yoghurt-for-stronger-suckling-piglets-and-sows/

FEED,HEALTH AND GROWTH OF PIGS.

Precision Livestock Farming is becoming very popular; many technologically driven companies are zooming into data-
collecting methods. Thus focusing on exact needs of the modern pig will allow producers to meet tomorrow's challenges, says Prof Sandra Edwards.“We cannot hope to improve the performance of today's pigs if we continue to rely on the nutritional, feeding and performance data we collected from (traditional) pigs a long time ago," says veteran UK pig researcher and scientist and chair of agriculture at the University of Newcastle, Prof Sandra Edwards. She argues that the type of pig that most commercial producers are working with at the moment is completely different to the animals on pig farms even a decade ago, when consumer demands were totally different.A whole new bank of research data reflecting the needs of the modern pig are urgently required to ensure progress by researchers in pig development on the scientific front. he says research had shown that producers needed to feed sows with arginine and glutamine supplements to help increase the placental quality, which reduced birth weight variation, as well as the number of under-weight piglets born alive.Recent work had also shown that including essential fatty acids such as docosahexanoic acid (DHA), which is found in algae and fish, in sow diets during the last month of their pregnancies led to a significant drop in the number of stillbirths. It also resulted in a longer farrowing duration. Feeding the sows to get their condition right before they go into the farrowing house and even before that. The pre-mating diet can have a big impact on embryo survival and high plane feeding before mating will help reduce embryo mortality. Sows should not be fed to produce bigger litters, but rather fed to meet the challenges of weaning more top quality piglets successfully. Read more ;http://www.pigprogress.net/Home/General/2014/1/Health-feed-growth--Nothing-happens-in-isolation-1392863W/?intcmp=related-content