Autumn infertility

Outdoor sows are very much at the mercy of increasing and decreasing seasonal light patterns. Their hormone system cannot be fooled by controlled indoor lighting to get breeding 24/7. Still, autumn fertility can be resolved.
31 Mar 2008 - 2 comment(s) - Read more »

Acid questions

Organic acids are without doubt the most commonly used replacements for antimicrobial growth promoters. As organic acids are quite expensive, questions regarding their correct use never cease to come up in conversations. Here I describe some common recent issues.
25 Mar 2008 - 6 comment(s) - Read more »

Another link in the grain price chain - barrels of oil

The link between the price of a barrel of oil, biofuel production and the grain price was described in a recent paper - if the cost of a barrel of oil stays high, don't expect grain prices to fall sharply.
17 Mar 2008 - 1 comment(s) - Read more »

Water: the hidden threat

Things on the water front are looking up. Encouragingly, many papers have now been published on water as well. Still, water hygiene is taken far too much for granted. Here are some good advices.
11 Mar 2008 - 5 comment(s) - Read more »

Lowering lactose

Unfortunately, piglets require expensive lactose to switch successfully from sow's milk to cereal energy sources. How much lactose is truly essential?
05 Mar 2008 - 0 comment(s) - Read more »

How much do different meats contribute to salmonellosis in man?

The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has just reported on how much do different meats contribute to salmonellosis in man and they have found it very difficult to conclusively attribute the level from different meat sources. They appeared to agree that eggs and egg products were the most frequently implicated sources but were not sure about the risk from poultry, pork, beef and lamb - so let's have a go.
26 Feb 2008 - 0 comment(s) - Read more »

Getting that just-weaned piglet to eat

Getting the newly-weaned piglets to eat enough immediately after weaning can be a real problem. On every nursery I tour I look for the following. I see from my notes that in the last 20 farms visited the following practices tended not to be done. 
19 Feb 2008 - 8 comment(s) - Read more »

Phosphorus

Why life would ever be easy, right? Not only cereal prices are high, and according to Rabobank they are going to remain up there for quite sometime now, but phosphate prices have recently skyrocketed. If feed cost was high before, it is becoming increasingly prohibiting for many producers to continue operations now, even at some loss. So, action must be taken!
12 Feb 2008 - 4 comment(s) - Read more »

Salmonella food poisoning - more good news for the pig industry?

Salmonella species are the second most common cause of food poisoning in man after Campylobacter spp, affecting over 13,400 people in the UK each year, but the latest report on Salmonella in Livestock Production in Great Britain (VLA, 2007) shows that only a small fraction (<1.8%) of human infections can be associated with pig isolates.
05 Feb 2008 - 0 comment(s) - Read more »

The current feed price rise crisis

Of course every pig producer is talking about the feed price crisis now. I have been looking at what you can do at no cost at all to mitigate the extra €0.31/ kg this savage price hike is costing them. You can narrow that gap for no cost at all. Go for it guys!
28 Jan 2008 - 3 comment(s) - Read more »