Body condition prior to and after farrowing has been shown to be associated with sow productivity. The objective for this study was to evaluate body condition impacts at a snapshot in time and determine its association with sow production measures. Data were collected from Midwestern commercial breed-to-wean farms (n = 3). These farms represented typical commercial genetic maternal lines and management systems. Two separate sow groups were measured at each farm representing sows entering farrowing (pre-farrow, n = 717, d 90 – 113 gestation) and sows that had been most recently weaned (post-farrow, n =756, d 2 – 30 post-weaning). A BCS sow caliper was used to objectively assess body condition. Using the caliper measurements, condition was broken into 3 categories: “thin” (< 12), “ideal” (13-15), and “fat” (>16). Production records were obtained for number born live, stillborn, mummified, and weaned piglets as well as the wean-to-estrus interval. Data were evaluated using the mixed model methods (PROC MIXED, SAS Institute, Cary, NC). Pre-farrow caliper measurements indicated sows categorized as “fat” had fewer pigs born live compared with “thin” sows (P < 0.15). Sows classified as “fat” prior to farrowing had the least number of pigs weaned compared with sows in “ideal” or “thin” condition (P < 0.05). Retrospective post-farrow results revealed there was tendency for “thin” sows to have had more pigs born live than “fat” sows (P < 0.15). “Thin” sows had weaned the most pigs when compared with sows in either the “ideal” or “fat” category (P < 0.05). This suggests that gestational feed management and preventing sows from putting on excessive body fat prior to farrowing has positive effects on the number of pigs born alive at the subsequent farrowing and pigs weaned following lactation. This leads to feed savings and economic benefits.

This study compared growth performance and carcass characteristicsof finishing pigsfed reduced lysine diets in bedded hoop barns. The purpose of this study was to compare growth performance and carcass characteristics of market pigs fed reduced lysine diets in bedded hoop barns with the intended goal of improving intramuscular fat. Pens of finishing pigs housed in hoop barns at the ISU Western Research Farm,Castana,IA,were randomly assigned one of two dietary treatments. The first dietary treatment was a corn-soybean meal based finishing pig diet formulated to meet or exceed recommended standardized ileal digestible (SID) Lysine concentration. The second dietary treatment was also a corn-soybean meal based diet that was formulated to deliver 24% less SID Lysine. Pigs were fed for 80–110 days, with pig weight and feed disappearancebeing measured every 28d.Pigs were scanned using real time ultrasound at the end of the trial. Following harvest, a subset of loins were analyzed for quality attributes. Overall,pigs underfed lysine grew slower and less efficiently. There were no differences in loin quality caused by dietary treatment,although there was a trend for pigs underfed lysine to produce smaller loin muscles. Matching diet formulation with genetic potential is a sound strategy for maximizing lean growth in pigs. Underfeeding lysine to pigs with the genetic potential for high levels of lean-growth didnot result in improved loin quality.

The variation in backfat of commodity pork has declined to the point some major packers are no longer measuring backfat depth. From our previous research with Berkshire pigs, a large amount of variation in backfat and loin eye area (LEA) still existed, especially between barrows and gilts. In our previous research, barrows average one inch backfat depth around 210 pounds whereas gilts did not achieve one inch until 260 pounds. This potentially may be a meat quality issue for gilts marketed less than 260 pounds. The objective of these trials was to replicate our previous study and to determine whether these differences persisted within a different set of Berkshire pigs under the same nutritional regimen. Understanding how feed programs and growth rates affect lean and fat deposition rates is a critical aspect to these niche programs in order to maintain consistency and quality of the Berkshire pork products marketed. Overall, barrows averaged an inch of backfat between 230 and 250 lb body weight whereas gilts average backfat was .90 inches at 269 pounds market weight. Only a 30% of the gilts within these two groups were over one inch backfat at market. These differences are crucial when selecting animals for market to achieve the highest desirability in meat quality within the Berkshire marketing system. These differences between barrows and gilts indicate it may be more critical that each are fed differently than in commodity pork production systems.

Swine finishing facility ventilation has become relatively complex and is often mismanaged as a system. One of the few ways to truly understand these systems is to spend time systematically going through the many components of the building and how they work as a system. To learn to help producers better, a team of university Extension specialists that included agricultural engineers and animal scientists spent an extended period carefully documenting conditions in a deep-pit swine finishing building with two 1,000-head rooms. Exhaust fans connected to the manure pit and wall fans were operated at various stages as a negative-pressure ventilation system. A computerized controller activated exhaust fans, a ventilation curtain actuator, heaters, stir fans, and a spray cooling system. Gravity-controlled baffled ceiling inlets were evenly spaced in the building to provide good air distribution during cold and mild weather conditions. Following the review of current conditions and operating parameters, performance deficiencies were identified and recommendations were given regarding controller settings, inlet settings, and the transition to natural ventilation. Specific recommendations included changing minimum ventilation speed settings of fans based on animal size, removing inlet stops during warmer weather to avoid premature transition to natural ventilation, a change in how fans were staged, a change in setpoint, and the specific temperature at which the cooling system was engaged.

Information is provided on pig production efficiency for niche pork production. Information from 27 niche pork producers is included in the analysis. The average female breeding herd size was 81 females. The average feed efficiency was 4.42 pounds of feed per pound of production, although the average for the top 9 herds was 3.78 and the average for the bottom 9 herds was 5.24. Average labor use was 1.01 hours per hundred pounds of pork produced. About one of every four pigs born alive died before weaning. Another 13 percent died from weaning to market. Breeding herd death loss was in the 4 to 12 percent range. The information summarized here shows striking differences in many areas between the top 9 and bottom 9 producers. The areas with the largest differences are places with the most potential to help producers improve. Educational programming that targets these areas is being developed to help these producers make changes to improve their operations, which in turn will improve the position of this sector of the industry.

We used ISO-compliant life cycle assessment to evaluate the comparative environmental performance of high- and low-profitability commodity and deep-bedded niche swine production systems in the Upper Midwestern United States. Specifically, we evaluated the contributions of feed production, in-barn energy use, manure management, and piglet production to farm-gate life cycle energy use, ecological footprint, and greenhouse gas (GHG) and eutrophying emissions per animal produced and per live-weight kg. We found that commodity systems generally outperform deep-bedded niche systems for these criteria, but that significant overlap occurs in the range of impacts characteristic of high- and low-profitability production between systems. Given the non-optimized status of current deep-bedded niche relative to commodity production, we suggest that optimizing niche systems through improvements in feed and sow herd efficiency holds significant environmental performance improvement potential. Drivers of impacts differed between commodity and deep-bedded niche systems. Feed production was the key consideration in both, but proportionally more important in niche production due to lower feed use efficiencies. Liquid manure management in commodity production strongly influenced GHG emissions, whereas solid manure management increased eutrophication potential due to outdoor storage in deep-bedded niche production. We further observe an interesting but highly imperfect relationship between economic and environmental performance measures, where profitability tracks well with resource (in particular, feed) throughput, but only indirectly with emissions intensity. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Iowa’s ethanol industry continues to expand rapidly. A major coproduct of ethanol production is dried distillers grains with solubles (DDGS). Higher prices for corn and increasing supplies of DDGS have generated questions about feeding DDGS to market swine. The objective of this study was to evaluate various programs to maximize DDGS feeding to finishing pigs in bedded hoop barns. The work reported is the first of several trials planned.