Producing a pig of higher value at less cost in a safe and healthy environment is fundamental to the Prairie Swine Centre, based at the University of Saskatchewan.

Established 25 years ago to provide ground level research for the swine and pork industries, the team is supported largely by the levies producers pay to their provincial boards as well as by governments and partnerships with industry and other research centres.

In April, key members of the team took their research on the road for PSC’s annual spring producer meetings, held during mid-April in Portage La Prairie, MB, Swift Current, SK, and Strathmore, Alberta.

They revealed their most recent discoveries in a broad range of production areas, from vaccination protocols and pain mitigation to housing densities and high-tech measurement systems.

The bottom line in the research, said Ken Engele, Manager of Technology Transfer at PSC, is that each technology is tested to determine its real value at ground level.

“Approximated 33 per cent of these projects with an economic return are considered easy to adopt. What I mean by easy to adopt is things that don’t cost money, they don’t cost a whole bunch of time and they’re not free, but will require a little bit of labour: Adjusting feeders properly, adjusting nipple drinkers properly, and things like that.”

Engele explained that Prairie Swine Centre generates $4 for every $1 in contributions from farmers, through government and industry funding. The benefits are then returned to producers to help them get the most out of their operations at a value of at least $1 per pig per year.

Laurence Maignel, a geneticist with the Canadian Centre For Swine Improvement, discussed the value of new technologies that some producers may find useful in a variety of applications, such as monitoring animal health, welfare and feed efficiency.

Novel technologies are becoming more cheaply available to measure traits that, in the past, were too difficult or expensive to monitor, said Maignel.

For example, a study currently underway in Quebec uses radio-frequency ID tag and water meters to measure the amount of water each pig consumes. The study will help identify waste as well as indicate the pig’s food intake and health status.

Another study is underway at the Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada research centre in Lacombe, AB, using infra-red thermography to measure such key traits as health status, stress levels and feed efficiency. There is potential to combine technologies, such as infra-red and 3D vision, to make precise measurements for traits, said Maignel.

“We have a lot to learn from other industries and species,” she said.

PSC has started trials on some new tools, including smart printers and infra-red cameras.

Some of those technologies are available on the market now, in other applications, and the prices continue to drop, so the technologies will be available “very quick” for use in commercial barns, said Maignel.

Ethologist Jennifer Brown from PSC walked producers through her team’s findings in relations to pain mitigation and stall enrichment recommendations in Canada’s updated Code of Practice for pigs, released in 2014.

The goal in pain management is to improve animal welfare during procedures such as tail docking and castration and to improve the public’s perception of the industry in relation to the process, said Brown.

There is some evidence, although it is not strong, that pain control during processing will reduce mortality among piglets from older sows, she said. The reason is not yet known, although it may be related to the size and health of the piglets at birth. More work is needed to clarify the benefits, she said.

At the start of the study, costs ranged from 22 to 36 cents per pig, depending on the drug used, with labour being the highest of the costs.

Canada-wide, pain control for processing piglets is estimated to cost between $5 million and $9 million.

“It is a considerable cost, so we really want to understand better the benefits to the pigs themselves,” said Brown.

Ideally, analgesics should be provided 30 minutes before the procedure, but may be impractical because of the additional labour and stress on the animal, she said.

One producer in the crowd said he observed that the pigs given pain control returned to suckling much more quickly than in the past, when none was given.

There has been some work on use of topical gels, which Brown said she would like to try at PSC. She cautioned that farmers combining pain control with other medication need to be aware that some components will bind together, making the medications ineffective if not used within 24 hours.

Immunological castration is also an option, she said. Treated boars will not develop taint, but packers may not be willing to accept them. The benefit to producers includes improved animal welfare as well as better feed conversion from intact males.

Addressing housing enrichment, Brown said the Code of Practice for the Care and Handling of Pigs prescribes Six S’s: Safety, sanitation, softness, simplicity, suspension and site specification.

Brown described a variety of options for stall enrichment, based on those six factors.

The finisher pens at PSC, for example, use pieces of softwood suspended by a chain. Suspending tools keeps them clean and accessible. In the breeding barn, enrichments can reduce aggression and competition among sows and can also reduce fear and improve cognition among gilts, she said.

Studies are still underway at PSC and more results will be presented next year, said Brown. She warned that requirements for enrichment may become more stringent in the future.

Ravneet Kaur, a graduate student with PSC, described recent work on housing density for weaned pigs.

Her team took cortisol measurements as an indicator of stress, finding in Phase 1 that the levels were higher where pigs had more room, suggesting that they were more active.

Also in Phase 1, the team noted some behaviour changes, including overlying, among pigs in tighter quarters, but there was no impact on growth or average daily gains, said Kaur.

However, Phase 2 of the study showed better results among pigs that had more space.

Data regarding seasonal affects is still under analysis, and there is a need to analyze data under more parameters, she said.

Veterinarian Leanne Van De Weyer and territory manager Dennis Stevenson, both from Zoetis, offered a short course in effective use of vaccines and medication.

Van De Weyer described how vaccines are used to produce antibodies, which then protect pigs from invading pathogens. The antibodies a piglet receives from the sow are effective in the short term, but do not develop a memory to maintain immunity over time, she said.

It is therefore vital to a piglet’s ongoing health that it receive a fair share of colostrum from its own mother for short-term protection, she. Colostrum from another sow will not be as effective, but it will be more effective than none at all, she said.

Vaccines must be given 10 to 14 days ahead of exposure to give the piglet time to develop the appropriate antibodies, said Van De Weyer. However, maternal antibodies received in the colostrum may interfere with vaccination in young piglets because those antibodies cannot distinguish the vaccine from the disease.

Stevenson outlined a variety of errors that can reduce or destroy the effectiveness of vaccines and medications. “Not everybody’s following the rules,” he said.

“Proper storage of the product, pre-warming the vaccine, shake the bottles before you use them, using the proper needle length, minimizing the stress on the pigs – I don’t know how many times I go to farms and I talk to guys, and everybody in the office . . . knows these rules. People know the theory, but stuff is getting in the way. There are problems on the farm, we don’t always have the tools that we want or need, (and) the young fellow that came from school this afternoon to do the vaccination, he actually didn’t read any of those rules.”

Stevenson stressed that the theory must match the reality for any protocol to work effectively.

“PIC specialists Michel Lariviere and Monty Thomson discussed the influence of genetics on swine production, including bigger litters.”

PSC’s 2017 spring producer meetings were supported by donations from Zoetis and PIC Canada.

Information about its people and their research is available online at www.prairieswine.com or by calling 306.373.9922. Direct numbers and email addresses for key individuals are listed on the website. •

— By Brenda Kossowan