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Latest Blogs (181-190 of 249)
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.
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.
Lowering lactose
Unfortunately, piglets require expensive lactose to
switch successfully from sow's milk to cereal energy sources. How much lactose
is truly essential?
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.
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.
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!
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.
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!
Nutritional solutions to Edema Disease
Edema or oedema, depending whether you are in the USA or UK, respectively, is
a frequent gastrointestinal disorder affecting millions of pigs each year.
Scours, loss of appetite, depressed performance and overall condition are all
consequences of this infective disease.
Campylobacter food poisoning - good news for pigs!
Campylobacter species are the commonest cause of food
poisoning in man, affecting over 50,000 people in the UK and 69/100,000
population in Denmark each year, but Danish researchers have shown that
potentially, only a small fraction of pig isolates are associated with man and
these strains are also found in poultry, which appears to be a major
source.
