Dr. Jennifer Brown mentoring grad student Abby Tillotson

Teaching was pretty low on the scale of priorities in 2009, when research scientist Jennifer Brown joined the staff at Prairie Swine Centre. Fourteen years later, as she lays out her plans for life after retirement, Brown says mentoring and teaching young scientists has become one of the more rewarding aspects of her career. Advising the graduate students currently under her supervision is among the duties she will continue to perform after stepping back in June from her position as head of the ethology research section at the Centre.

A hot and humid June morning finds her inside the barn, chatting with grad student Abby Tillotson and assistant Kaley Ingram as they drop crumpled sheets of paper into the pens of grower pigs. Tillotson is conducting studies for her master’s thesis, which will assess the effects of periodic enrichment on negative behaviour (tail biting) in swine.

The essence of periodic enrichment versus installed items such as ropes and chains is that it gives the pigs something to look forward too, says Brown. Pigs become habituated to permanent enrichment’s, which lose effect over time.

Inside the PSC farrowing room

“The novelty wears off and then it doesn’t really do anything for them. When you give them periodic enrichment, it’s something more interesting that they can play with,” says Brown.

“She sprays (the paper) with citrus oil, so there’s a smell to it, and it’s paper and they can devour it. It becomes like an event in their day. It gives them something they can think about.”

Tillotson scores tail biting in each pen on a scale of one to three and then compares data from the pens that receive the treatment to data from the control group.She hopes to present her results at the end of this year or early in 2024, possibly in the poster competition at Banff Pork Seminar.

Last year, another student under Brown’s supervision, Jessica Vehof, won the R. O. Ball Young Scientist Award for her presentation of a study on the affects of various mixing practices in sow groups. Vehof’s results, comparing three different mixing practices with a control group, determined that a dynamic group performed better overall than the static group. They had better farrowing rates and reduced aggression and, unexpectedly, had fewer total born but also had fewer stillborn and mummies.

Vehof has now completed her master’s program and returned to her home farm in Ontario, says Brown.

Besides sticking with Tillotson while she completes her degree, Brown is seeking an extension on a research project and expects to help smooth the transition for a new ethology head who has yet to be officially announced. The candidate, based in Taiwan and familiar to Brown through seminars they have both attended, is still awaiting approval from Immigration and Citizenship Canada.

“She’s done a lot of work similar to what I have done. We have met previously. It’s a small community.”Brown says she would still like to follow up on some research needed including finding a better way to mark and identify research animals. Currently, researchers use ear notches to readily identify pigs that are in a program. But after a while, those ears can bear quite a few notches. However, alternatives are not readily available. RFID tags are expensive, ear tags get torn off and because they will be sold for meat, chips are not allowed. Tattooing is not effective with an animal that starts out small and quickly grows to over 100 kilograms.

Further work is also needed in management of electronic sow feeding systems, which currently have a higher mortality rate among gilts and first-parity sows. Mortalities arise from lameness and stress that gilts and first-parity sows experience as they adapt to the ESF systems, says Brown.

The gestation room and below the Prairie Swine Centre

Work is needed as well on designing farrowing crates that will allow the sow to perform natural nesting behaviour while ensuring that piglets are not crushed.

Brown was working on a post-doctoral thesis when she first joined Prairie Swine Centre, unaware that the head of ethology, Harold Gonyou was about to retire and that, in 2013, she would take his place.

At the time, she and Gonyou were working on an engineering project that looked at the impact of trailer placement on hogs being hauled to slaughter. Thermometers were mounted in various locations withing the trailer and the pigs were given a bolus that monitored their internal temperatures through the trip, says Ken Engele, manager of information services for Prairie Swine Centre.

Dr. Brown in her happy place

Work was also underway on an updated Code of Practice for the Care and Handling of Pigs, released in 2014. Gonyou worked on the Code and knew where the science was lacking, says Brown, who hit the road to introduce major changes to producers to help them prepare for the new requirements, particularly in areas of sow housing and pain management.

Reflecting on a career path that has taken her across the country from her home on Prince Edward Island, Brown says it was the work of animal welfare trailblazer Temple Grandin that inspired her. She chose hogs because they are so different from cattle.

“We still don’t understand a lot about pigs. We still can make assumptions, but even their sense of smell – we can’t imagine. As a human model too, in science, they’re so much better than a bunch of rodents.”

With a few more months of work ahead of her, Brown is now officially retired and coming in part-time from the farm she shared with her husband, Peter Zuck.

She and Peter had planned to retire together and have some fun on their mixed livestock farm, located about an hour north of Saskatoon. Plans changed early in 2022, with the discovery that he was in the advanced stage of a severe illness that took his life a short time later.

Reconciled with the loss of her husband, Brown is now preparing for her return next spring to the home where her only child, a son from her first marriage, lives with his future wife. Alyre Woodworth and McKayla Aten are expecting their first baby later this year. They will move onto the Aten family’s dairy farm, allowing Brown to move back into her former home.

Brown said it’s not the retirement she had planned, but she’s looking forward to returning to her family and her roots.“It’s time to move on,” she says.

— By Brenda Kossowan

A Brief History of Prairie Swine Centre

The Saskatchewan research facility now known as Prairie Swine Centre started life in 1980 as a teaching centre for students of the University of Saskatchewan. At the time, it served the College of Agriculture, Western Centre for Veterinary Medicine and the College of Engineering, says Ken Engele, manager of information services.

The facility had three farrow-to-finish barns, two with 100 sows and a smaller one with 50 sows, plus a 240-head finishing barn, says Engele.

Then, in 1987, the university partnered with the Saskatchewan Hog Marketing Commission to review the function and operations of its teaching facility. The study revealed that there was a major gap in research within the grower-finisher area, says Engele.

The function and operations were revamped into the Prairie Swine Centre with focus in areas of nutrition, engineering and animal health.

In 1991, the Centre was officially spun off from the university to become a stand-alone, non-profit corporation. It would remain affiliated with the university, including the teaching role its research scientists would play as adjunct professors, but it would have its own board of directors who would report to the university’s board.Also in 1991, the advisory board determined that if the facility was going to have a research program, it needed to formally establish a knowledge and technology transfer program to share its findings with the industry, says Engele.

Integral to the operations of the Centre was a mandate that it cover its own costs and operate as a commercial facility, subject to the same market forces as the producers for whom the research was most relevant.

Prairie Swine Centre today receives base funding from provincial organizations and other sources of research funding such as the Saskatchewan Agricultural Development Fund, says Engele. The Centre also brings income from contract research performed for companies that need help testing products and technologies. However, 25 per cent of its income is based on the production and sale of commercial hogs.

“The more efficient we can be at producing pigs, the better off we are financially. It keeps us more tuned with the messaging and everything else that helps us help producers,” says Engele.

To maintain its high-health status and preserve bio-security, the Centre has a closed herd established with breeding animals and genetics provided through a long-term relationship with PIC. New breeding stock is introduced as needed, but only under the most guarded protocols, says Engele.

A massive renovation was completed in 2008, creating a total of 1,672 spaces and growing the sow herd from 250 to 300 head. A full description of the facilities, including special rooms constructed for research, can be found on the Centre’s website.

Western Canada’s hog industry has changed significantly in the 43 years since the first barns were built, says Engele.

Like the industry it serves, today’s Prairie Swine Centre is vastly different from the barns that were first constructed more than 40 years ago.

While commercial farms have become fewer and larger, there is a trend now to more backyard and outdoor producers for whom the commercial practices may lack relevance, he says.

“We have a whole research program, with funding in place, and a couple of initiatives relevant to small producers.”

When the pork boards started counting the number of small producers, they realized their numbers were much larger than the commercial industry and saw a need to help those producers manage their animals in the best way possible.

There is a need for good information, because while many of them have good intentions, they may not know where to find the information they need, says Engele.

Protecting the industry from African Swine Fever and any other foreign animal disease is of primary importance, he says. Outdoor pigs are exposed to potential infection and therefore must be properly contained, not just to keep the livestock in, but to keep other animals out, he says.“I think people look at our outdoor production as a high risk. ASF, once it’s endemic in the wild population, you can’t get rid of it.”

Along with its research programs, the Centre continues to provide jobs and educational opportunities for students attending the university and the WCVM. One of the main sources of labour in the barns is out-of-province students seeking Saskatchewan residency so they can qualify for a seat in the veterinary school. Students must have lived in the province for a full year to qualify for those seats.

Large animal experience is also required, so working at the Centre can provide that for potential veterinary students, says Engele.

“The students (attending) here are all grad students in the College of Graduate Studies, in animal science.” Ethology and nutrition fall within that program.

Please visit prairieswine.com for an in-depth view of the facility and its programs. •

— By Brenda Kossowan