Managing variability in decision making in swine growing-finishing units

peer-reviewedAnalysis of data collected from pig farms may be useful to understand factors affecting pig health and productive performance. However, obtaining these data and drawing conclusions from them can be done at different levels and presents several challenges. In the present study, information from 688 batches of growing-finishing (GF) pigs (average initial and final body weight of 19.1 and 108.5 kg respectively) from 404 GF farms integrated in 7 companies was obtained between July 2008 and July 2010 in Spain by survey. Management and facility factors associated with feed conversion ratio (FCR) and mortality were studied by multiple linear regression analysis in each single company (A to G) and in an overall database (OD). Factors studied were geographic location of the farm, trimester the pigs entered the farm, breed of sire and sex segregation in pens (BREGENSEG), use of circovirus vaccine, number of origins the pigs were obtained from, age of the farm, percentage of slatted floor, type of feeder, drinker and ventilation, number of phases and form of feed, antibiotic administration system, water source, and number and initial weight of pigs. Results In two or more companies studied and/or in OD, the trimester when pigs were placed in the farm, BREGENSEG, number of origins of the pigs, age of the farm and initial body weight were factors associated with FCR. Regarding mortality, trimester of placement, number of origins of the pigs, water source in the farm, number of pigs placed and the initial body weight were relevant factors. Age of the farm, antibiotic administration system, and water source were only provided by some of the studied companies and were not included in the OD model, however, when analyzed in particular companies these three variables had an important effect and may be variables of interest in companies that do not record them. Conclusions Analysing data collected from farms at different levels helps better understand factors associated with productive performance of pig herds. Out of the studied factors trimester of placement and number of origins of the pigs were the most relevant factors associated with FCR and mortality.This research was supported by the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (project AGL2011-29960). We also thank the Agencia Española de Cooperación Internacional para el Desarrollo (MAEC-AECID) for research fellowship

Do weaner pigs need in-feed antibiotics to ensure good health and welfare?

peer-reviewedThis study was part of the WELPIG project which was funded from internal Teagasc funds. During the writing of this paper JACD’s position was funded by the Department of Agriculture Food and the Marine under the Research Stimulus Fund (PathSurvPigs 14/S/832) as part of the National Development PlanAntibiotics (AB) are used in intensive pig production systems to control infectious diseases and they are suspected to be a major source of antibiotic resistance. Following the ban on AB use as growth promoters in the EU, their prophylactic use in-feed is now under review. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of removing prophylactic in-feed AB on pig health and welfare indicators. Every Monday for six weeks, a subset of 70 pigs were weaned, tagged and sorted into two groups of 35 pigs according to weight (9.2 ± 0.6 kg). AB were removed from the diet of one group (NO, n=6) and maintained in the other group (AB, n=6) for nine weeks. Ten focal pigs were chosen per group. After c. five weeks each group was split into two pens of c.17 pigs for the following 4 weeks. Data were recorded weekly. Skin, tail, ear, flank and limb lesions of focal pigs were scored according to severity. The number of animals per group affected by health deviations was also recorded. The number of fights and harmful behaviours (ear, tail bites) per group was counted during 3×5min observations once per week. Data were analysed using mixed model equations and binomial logistic regression. At group level, AB pigs were more likely to have tail (OR=1.70; P=0.05) but less likely to have ear lesions than NO pigs (OR=0.46; P<0.05). The number of ear bites (21.4±2.15 vs. 17.3±1.61; P<0.05) and fights (6.91±0.91 vs. 5.58±0.72; P=0.09) was higher in AB than in NO pigs. There was no effect of treatment on health deviations and the frequency of these was low. Removing AB from the feed of weaner pigs had minimal effects on health and welfare indicators

Prevalence of welfare outcomes in the weaner and finisher stages of the production cycle on 31 Irish pig farms

peer-reviewedBackground Knowledge on the most prevalent welfare problems for pigs in different production stages is required to improve herd management plans. Thirty-one farrow-to-finish pig farms were visited between July and November 2015 to assess the welfare of pigs using the multicriteria approach of the Welfare Quality® protocol. On each farm, 6 pens were selected using proportionate stratified sampling in the first weaner (S1, 4 to 8 wks), second weaner (S2, 8 to 13 wks) and finisher stage (S3, 13 to 23 wks), excluding hospital pens. Each pen was observed for 10 min and the number of pigs affected by different welfare outcomes was recorded. The percentage of pigs affected was calculated and ranked to identify the most prevalent outcomes within each production stage. Differences between production stages were analysed using generalised linear mixed models for binomial data with pen within stage and farm as a random effect. Results Tail and ear lesions showed the highest prevalence; however, large variation was observed between farms. In S1 the most prevalent welfare outcomes (presented as median prevalence) were poor body condition (4.4%), lethargic pigs (1.5%), scouring (20.3% of pens) and huddling (3.7%). In S2 and S3 outcomes related to injurious behaviour (tail lesions: 5.9% [S2] and 10.5% [S3], ear lesions: 9.1% [S2] and 3.3% [S3], and flank lesions: 0.4% [S2] and 1.3% [S3]), lameness (0.8% [S2] and 1.1% [S3]), bursitis (3.9% [S2] and 7.5% [S3]) and hernias (1.6% [S2] and 1.8% [S3]) were more prevalent. Conclusions A large variation was observed for the recorded welfare outcomes corresponding to the different challenges pigs experience during the different stages of production on commercial pig farms. The prevalence of pigs affected by lesions caused by injurious behavior is a cause for concern and requires a collaborative approach to identify appropriate intervention strategies. This information could be used to further investigate appropriate benchmark values for different welfare outcomes that would assist the pig industry to develop appropriate health and welfare management plans to minimise welfare problems. At herd level such plans should include information on aspects of intervention, treatment, and the management of hospital pens as well as euthanasia.This study was part of the PIGWELFIND project funded by the Research Stimulus Fund (11/S/107) of the Irish Department of Agriculture, Food and Marine under the National Development Plan (2007–2013). We acknowledge the Walsh Fellowship Scheme for providing funding for Nienke van Staaveren. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript

Removing prophylactic antibiotics from pig feed: how does it affect their performance and health?

peer-reviewedBackground Antibiotics (AB) are an important tool to tackle infectious disease in pig farms; however some research indicates that their frequent mis/over-use may contribute to the development of antibiotic resistance and the WHO has declared that this issue should be addressed. Little is known about the long term consequences of withdrawing prophylactic AB from pig feed; hence we aimed to assess its effects on performance and health of pigs from weaning to slaughter. Six batches of 140 pigs each were monitored on a commercial farm through the weaner and finisher stages to slaughter. In-feed antibiotics were not added to the feed for half of the pigs (NOI) and were added in the other half (ABI) within each batch for the whole weaner stage. Individual pigs in both treatments were treated with parenteral administrations if and when detected as ill or lame. Productive performance, parenteral treatments and mortality were recorded on farm and the presence of respiratory disease was recorded at slaughter. Pen was considered the experimental unit. Results ABI pigs showed higher growth (P = 0.018) and feed intake (P = 0.048) than NOI pigs in the first weaner stage but feed efficiency was not affected (NOI = 1.48 vs. ABI = 1.52). Despite an initial reduction in performance, NOI pigs had similar performance in finisher stage (ADG: NOI = 865.4 vs. ABI = 882.2) and minimal effects on health compared to ABI pigs. No difference between treatments was found at the abattoir for the percentage of pigs affected by pneumonia, pleurisy, pleuropneumonia and abscesses (P > 0.05). Mortality rate was not affected by treatment during the weaner stage (P = 0.806) although it tended to be slightly higher in NOI than ABI pigs during the finisher stage (P = 0.099). Parenteral treatments were more frequent in NOI pigs during the weaner stage (P <  0.001) while no difference was recorded during the finisher stage (P = 0.406). Conclusions These data suggest that the removal of prophylactic in-feed antibiotics is possible with only minor reductions in productive performance and health which can be addressed by improved husbandry and use of parenteral antibiotics

Using the Biocheck.UGent™ scoring tool in Irish farrow-to-finish pig farms: assessing biosecurity and its relation to productive performance

peer-reviewedBackground Biosecurity is one of the main factors affecting disease occurrence and antimicrobial use, and it is associated with performance in pig production. However, the importance of specific measures could vary depending on the (national) context. The aim of this study was to describe the biosecurity status in a cohort of Irish pig farms, to investigate which of those biosecurity aspects are more relevant by using the Biocheck.UGent™ scoring system, and to study the impact of such aspects on farm performance. Results External biosecurity score was high compared to most countries due to the characteristics of the Irish pig sector (i.e. purchasing only semen and breeding gilts on farm). The internal biosecurity score was lower and had greater variability among farms than other EU countries. Using multivariable linear regression, the biosecurity practices explained 8, 23, and 16% of variability in piglet mortality, finisher mortality, and average daily gain, respectively. Three clusters of farms were defined based on their biosecurity scores (0 to 100) using principal components and hierarchical clustering analysis. Scores for clusters 1, 2 and 3 were (mean ± SD) 38 ± 7.6, 61 ± 7.0 and 66 ± 9.8 for internal and 73 ± 5.1, 74 ± 5.3 and 86 ± 4.5 for external biosecurity. Cluster 3 had lower piglet mortality (P = 0.022) and higher average daily gain (P = 0.037) when compared to cluster 2. Conclusions Irish farms follow European tendencies with internal biosecurity posing as the biggest liability. Our results suggest that practices related to the environment and region, feed, water and equipment supply, and the management of the different stages, need to be addressed in lower performing farms to improve productive performance. Further studies on the economic impact of these biosecurity practices including complementary data on herd health, gilt rearing, piglet management, vaccination and feeding strategies are needed

Systematic review and meta-analysis of the effect of feed enzymes on growth and nutrient digestibility in grow-finisher pigs: Effect of enzyme type and cereal source

peer-reviewedDietary supplementation of pig diets with exogenous enzymes has been suggested as a strategy to increase nutrient digestibility and improve feed efficiency in grow-finisher pigs. However, inconsistent results are found in the literature. Ingredient composition of the diets is one of the most important sources of variation that may affect enzyme efficacy and consistency of results. A systematic review and a meta-analysis was therefore conducted to determine which exogenous enzymes with which diet type most consistently improve pig growth, nutrient digestibility and feed efficiency. Enzyme type and dietary cereal source were the main explanatory variables included in the models. The mean difference effects of enzyme supplementation on average daily gain (ADG), average daily feed intake (ADFI), gain to feed (G:F), apparent ileal digestibility (AiD) and apparent total tract digestibility (ATTD) of dry matter (DM), crude protein (CP), and gross energy (GE) were calculated for each study and these were used as the effect size estimates in the meta-analysis. A dataset with 139 comparisons from 67 peer-reviewed publications was used in the meta-analysis. In response to enzyme supplementation, G:F was improved in 38 of the 120 comparisons reporting pig growth data, remained un-changed in 78 and deteriorated in 4. Overall, DM and GE AiD, and ATTD were improved by xylanase, xylanase + β-glucanase, mannanase and protease dietary supplementation (P < 0.05). Crude protein AiD was only improved by protease dietary supplementation (P < 0.001). Dietary supplementation with xylanase alone improved ADG of maize- (P < 0.05) and co-product- (P < 0.05) based diets but had no effect on the G:F of grow-finisher pigs. Dietary supplementation with xylanase + β-glucanase had no effect on ADG, ADFI and G:F. Protease supplementation tended to improve the ADG of grow-finisher pigs fed co-product-based diets (P = 0.08) but had no effect on G:F. Dietary supplementation with multi-enzyme complexes improved the ADG (P < 0.05) and G:F (P < 0.01) of maize-, wheat-, barley- and co-product-based diets. In conclusion, dietary supplementation with all enzyme types improved nutrient digestibility depending on ingredient content, while mannanase and multi-enzyme complex supplementation most consistently improved growth and feed efficiency

Effect of Raw and Extruded Propionic Acid-Treated Field Beans on Energy and Crude Protein Digestibility (In-Vitro and In-Vivo), Growth and Carcass Quality in Grow-Finisher Pigs

The in-vitro ileal digestibility of dry matter (DM), organic matter (OM), and crude protein (CP) of field beans treated with propionic acid (trFB) and extruded trFB (exFB) was determined in experiment 1. The DE and dCP values of trFB and exFB were determined using the difference method in experiment 2. The effect of replacing SBM with trFB and exFB in grow-finisher diets on growth, carcass quality, apparent ileal digestibility (AiD), and total tract digestibility (ATTD) of DM, OM, gross energy (GE), and CP were investigated in experiment 3. In exp. 1, in-vitro digestibility of exFB compared to trFB was unchanged for DM (p = 0.12), increased for OM (p 0.05).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Surgical castration with pain relief affects the health and productive performance of pigs in the suckling period

peer-reviewedBackground Surgical castration is still practiced in many EU countries to avoid undesirable aggressive behavior and boar taint in male pigs. However, evidence shows that castration is painful and has a detrimental influence on pig health. This study investigated the clinical and productive effects of surgical castration in the suckling period. A total of 3696 male pigs, 3 to 6 days old, comprising of 721 litters from two different farms were included in the study. Within each litter, half of the males were kept as intact males (IM) and half were surgically castrated (CM). Surgical castration was conducted by a trained farmer. Average daily gain (ADG), body weight at weaning (BWW), percentage of pre-weaning mortality (PWM) and antibiotic usage were measured. Pig major acute phase protein (PigMAP) serum concentrations were analyzed prior to castration, and on days 1 and 10 after castration. Productive performance data were analyzed using a linear mixed model. Mortality and percentage of pigs treated with antibiotics were analyzed using the Fisher’s exact test. Results No overall differences in BWW and ADG were observed between the two groups. However, differences were observed when the same effects were analyzed in the 25% lightest, 50% medium and 25% heaviest pigs at birth. PWM was higher in CM than in IM groups (6.3% vs 3.6%; p < 0.001), especially in the light (12.2% vs 6.2%; p = 0.02) and in the medium (5.5% vs 2.7%; p = 0.04) weight groups. In the heaviest pigs group PWM was not affected by castration, but IM tended to show higher ADG (p = 0.06) and showed higher BWW (8.0 kg vs 7.8 kg; p = 0.05) than CM. There were no differences in percentage of pigs treated with antibiotics between the two groups (5.8% vs 5.8%; p = 0.98) in this study. Furthermore, PigMAP was increased in CM the day after castration (0.944 mg/ml vs 0.847 mg/ml; p = 0.025), but there was no difference between CM and IM groups at day 10. Conclusions Surgical castration has a negative impact on production in the suckling period because it causes an increase in PWM, especially in pigs in the three lower quartiles for body weight, and negatively affects the BWW in pigs born in the highest quartile for body weight

Associations between animal and herd management factors, serological response to three respiratory pathogens and pluck lesions in finisher pigs on a farrow-to-finish farm

peer-reviewedBackground Serological screening is a common method to monitor antibody response to pathogen exposure, but results could vary due to several factors. This study aimed to quantify animal and management related factors associated with variation in antibody levels in finisher pigs at slaughter, in an Irish farrow-to-finish farm endemically infected with Actinobacillus pleuropneumonia (App), Mycoplasma hyopneumoniae (Mhyo) and swine influenza virus (SIV). A second objective was to estimate differences in antibody levels in pigs presenting pluck lesions. This was an observational study whereby pigs were managed as per routine farm practice. Data on sow parity, number of born alive (NBA) pigs per litter, cross-fostering status, birth and weaning body weight were recorded from 1016 pigs born from one farrowing batch. At slaughter, blood samples were collected for serological analysis and pigs were inspected for presence of enzootic pneumonia (EP)-like lesions, pleurisy, pericarditis and heart condemnations. Pigs were retrospectively classified into three production flows, depending on time spent in each production stage: flow 1 (F1; pigs followed the normal production flow); flow 2 (F2; pigs which were delayed by 1 week from advancing forward); and flow 3 (F3; pigs delayed by > 1 week from advancing forward). A nested case-control design was applied by matching pigs from each flow by sow parity, birth weight and NBA. Results Pigs born from primiparous sows had higher antibody levels for App than those born to parity ≥5 sows (P  0.05). Pigs in F1 had lower antibody levels for App but higher antibody levels for SIV than F2 and F3 pigs (P  0.05), except for increased antibody levels for Mhyo when EP-like lesions were present (P = 0.006). Conclusion Results indicate that offspring from primiparous sows develop higher antibody levels for App IV toxin when exposed to this disease and that enforcement of a strict all-in/all-out production system would reduce on-farm disease circulation. A high percentage of pigs were affected with EP-like lesions which were associated with higher antibody levels for Mhyo

Antimicrobial resistance in commensal Escherichia coli and Enterococcus spp. is influenced by production system, antimicrobial use, and biosecurity measures on Spanish pig farms

peer-reviewedBackground Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a global public health threat consequence of antimicrobial use (AMU) in human and animal medicine. In food-producing animals factors such as management, husbandry or biosecurity may impact AMU. Organic and extensive Iberian swine productions are based on a more sustainable and eco-friendly management system, providing an excellent opportunity to evaluate how sustained differences in AMU impact the AMR in indicator bacteria. Here, we evaluate the usefulness of commensal Escherichia coli and Enterococcus spp. isolates as AMR bioindicators when comparing 37 Spanish pig farms from both intensive and organic-extensive production systems, considering the effect of AMU and biosecurity measures, the last only on intensive farms. Results The production system was the main factor contributing to explain the AMR differences in E. coli and Enterococcus spp. In both bacteria, the pansusceptible phenotype was more common (p < 0.001) on organic-extensive farms when compared to intensive herds. The microbiological resistance in commensal E. coli was, for most of the antimicrobials evaluated, significantly higher (p < 0.05) on intensive farms. In enterococci, the lincosamides usage revealed the association between AMR and AMU, with an increase in the AMR for erythromycin (p < 0.01), quinupristin-dalfopristin (p < 0.01) and the multidrug-resistant (MDR) phenotype (p < 0.05). The biosecurity measures implemented on intensive farms influenced the AMR of these bioindicators, with a slightly lower resistance to sulfamethoxazole (p < 0.01) and the MDR phenotype (p < 0.05) in E. coli isolated from farms with better cleaning and disinfection protocols. On these intensive farms, we also observed that larger herds had a higher biosecurity when compared to smaller farms (p < 0.01), with no significant associations between AMU and the biosecurity scores. Conclusions Overall, this study evidences that the production system and, to a lesser extent, the biosecurity measures, contribute to the AMR development in commensal E. coli and Enterococcus spp., with antimicrobial usage as the main differential factor, and demonstrates the potential value of these bacteria as bioindicators on pig farms in AMR surveillance programs