Dr. Bernardo Predicala, who manages the Engineering Research Program at Prairie Swine Centre in Saskatoon, Sk made two presentations at the recent PSC producer meetings across the Prairies.
In this first presentation, he showed the PSC’s work on using infrared technology, infrared cameras, and RFID tags in drinkers
“The RFID we put in pigs so that we’re able to identify each pig when it actually went to the drinker, and then we quantify how much each pig is drinking. The whole idea is to determine whether changes in the feeding and drinking pattern of consumption can tell us whether the pigs are getting sick,” said Dr. Predicala. “Studies have shown that up to 12 or 24 to 48 hours before the actual onset of disease, the pigs’ drinking behaviour changes. That’s what we want to quantify to take away some of the manual evaluation that we’re doing in our daily barn walkthrough when, we’re looking at pigs which are sick or not, by using echo technology to help us capture those signals using technology. To it more accurately and consistently, because if you do it manually, it depends on whether this person is well-trained to spot those behavioural changes in the pigs that are getting sick or not.”
The research scientist the other side is the infrared camera.
“We put the cameras in the barn to capture their temperature. Studies show if pigs subjected or exposed to pathogens for example, then they get sick and they get a fever, but you can’t see that with the eye, right,” he said. “Unless you touch them and then say this pig is getting sick. An infrared camera can tell us the temperature of the pig, and if the camera is there the whole day, then we have the whole day to capture those changes in the animals, as opposed to a barn walkthrough, which would be for only four or five minutes. That’s the whole idea here to automate some of the things that we’re doing daily and using this technology.”
When asked how they’re are coming along with the use of this technology, Dr. Predicala said this study is in the second stage because other people developed them first. They have pilot testing on those two technologies, and the PSC is testing them in actual barns and take further their initial development.
“We had to find what else needs doing producers will use them in the hog barns because they did it in their research facilities. So it worked well, that’s why we’re testing it now at this second stage, but we still found some things needing improvement,” he said. “Like for example, the cameras that we use, some of them didn’t last long because of the different conditions in the barn. The RFID tags because you need the reader antenna for that, at times they will be detecting two pigs at a time, so it doesn’t work because we have to identify individual pigs and assign how much each pig is consuming. There are still a few things to be sorted out.”
Dr. Predicala’s second presentation focused on testing of a prototype air-filtered pig transport trailer: does it work? Development is underway for an innovative pig transport trailer.
“By maintaining an environmentally controlled environment for pigs during transport, we have an opportunity to reduce contamination while maintaining pig comfort,” he said. “The first thing is you want to protect the pigs against potential airborne infection when transporting. The other thing is you want to address existing issues, or issues with existing trailers, like welfare issues, like that wide variability in thermal conditions, in existing trailers. That’s why we’re trying to address down the line while using the existing trailers because we can’t go away with that, but it’s for more down the line if we’re going to build a new generation trailer, later on, then what features should they have.”
He said one is taking out as many ramps as possible. Also to protect them against airborne infections enclose the trailers, put in a filtration system to avoid contamination.
“But as questions show that this only works for certain conditions. It’s feasible if we are protecting high-value animals like genetic breeding stock, which cost thousands of dollars, as opposed to a normal market pig,” said the research scientist. “But also, some operations like multi-site operations, where they routinely transport pigs from one barn to another, and their barn’s already protected by investing in filtered barns, they want to be able to move their pigs while still protected, so that they don’t get contaminated while they’re outside of their barn. Otherwise, they waste all their investment filtering the air if the pigs coming into their barns are infected during transport.”
He said if it can realize those revenues for the pigs that transported in the air-filtered barn, then we can see that investment in this kind of trailer is feasible recovering the investment within two years.
“Our systems filter the air that goes inside the trailer. We’re making sure that whatever the air that goes into the trailer itself is only clean air by taking out whatever contaminants that’s in the outside air,” said Dr. Predicala. •
— By Harry Siemens