The opinion of the bloggers do not necessarily reflect the opinion of PigProgress.net or Reed Business. Comments welcome.
Latest Blogs (1-10 of 248)
NutriFair 2012 - a rather logical success
Is there room for yet another livestock trade show in the full agenda? The practice of NutriFair in Fredericia, 25-26 January, seems to say yes - if only strategically positioned.
Nutrition Questions
Nutrition is expensive, and it will remain so for a long time, especially while biofuels continue to compete with animals for cereals and other crops. Today, nutrition cost is estimated at 75% of total production cost. Most pig producers use free nutrition services offered ‘freely’not only by qualified nutrition suppliers, but quite often even by suppliers that have little connection to nutrition.
Silence
2011 has been the year of the presentations for me. For some reason, all happened in Belgium. It was a challenge to do and share some thoughts with a scientific agricultural audience – and to exchange ideas about how media and livestock production should go together.
Antimicrobial resistance day, week, year is almost over – where are we?
The European Commission’s DG Sanco has come out with their five-year Action Plan to fight antimicrobial resistance based on 12 key actions – so where are we and where do we envisage we are going?
IPVS 2012: Online registration and abstracts submission are open!
To host professionals in the swine industry from around the world is such a great honour, and it is even more meaningful to us as IPVS 2012 Korea (10 - 13 June 2012) is the very first congress to be held in Asia after the successful IPVS 1994 in Thailand.
A different subject: Talking about smaller litters
Attending a conference on the end of piglet castration in the European Union, held in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, I notice that both the topic as well as the visitors are unique.
Cobalt
In the last three years, actually since the worldwide financial crisis started - which coincided with the founding of my consulting service (I trust the two are not related!) - I have reviewed a lot of premix formulas with a ‘mandate’ to reduce cost.
Inulin
Since 2004, I have been using inulin indirectly and incidentally, being unavoidably present in one of my favorite ingredients for piglet feeds, but I have never used it in its pure form. Lately, I have reviewed a lot of new information regarding this ‘functional fiber’, and it appears to be all positive.
Finally - no more traffic jams
No more sweating and no more waiting at 2013's edition of VIV Asia as finally the long-promised skytrain link to Bangkok's BITEC centre has been completed.
Farm-specific diets
For growing/finishing pigs, that is – and the concept is a major revolution in the way to buy the feeds for them. Important enough to devote 3 of my `What the Textbooks Don`t Tell You` columns to explain the reasons, the costs, and the benefits from changing to this improved method of buying growing/finishing food. The textbooks so far seem to be coy in covering the subject.
