Past studies have shown that increasing stocking density will decrease the performance of the pigs. However, when commercial systems are backed-up due to logistic issues or disruptions in the supply chain, barns may be stocked at a lower floor space allowance to avoid bottlenecks. In this episode, Chloe Hagen returns to talk with me about her study where she increased stocking density while also increasing energy level to see if it can help mitigate the reduction in performance historically seen...
Decreasing swine mortality still tends to be the largest opportunity for farmers to increase overall profitability, which is why it is important that we understand all the factors that play into herd health. Dr. Chris Rademacher and I address this issue in today’s episode and talk about methods that can increase disease preparedness and what is necessary to start your nursery pigs off properly.
What you will learn:
1. Current challenges with nursery pigs
2. Introducing new caretaker...
Piglet mortality continues to be an issue for the swine industry and is one of the worst sources of economic losses in production facilities. Several studies have tried to identify new ways to decrease mortality to save producers money. In this episode, I talk with Kelsey Hammers about her study feeding zinc to sows at different timepoints during gestation to see how it affects piglet mortality. Take a few minutes out of your day to hear the results!
Meet the guest: Kelsey Hammers is a Ph...
We all know the dangers of PRRSV, but how many strains are out there, and how many can you have at a given time? In this episode, I talk with Dr. Daniel Linhares and Dr. Giovani Trevisan about their work performing whole genome sequencing of PRRSV on multiple farms to get a deeper understanding of the current situation of PRRSV and to see how many strains a single farm has circulating at a given time.
Meet the guests:
Dr. Daniel Linhares is the Roy Schultz Professor of Swine Population M...
Covid caused a lot of issues in the swine industry that we were unprepared for especially in regard to meat packing plants shutting down for periods of time leaving farmers with no one to sell their pigs at market weight. Hopefully something like this will never happen again, but if it does it is important we are prepared and have a plan in place. In this episode I talked with Chloe Hagen about her study where she fed nutrient restricted diets to grow-finish pigs to measure how it affected time ...
Morning - your weekly 9-minute swine nutrition research update is here:
Zinc oxide is a wonderful tool for nursery pigs. However, there have been concerns about the environmental impact ZnO can have. Several research studies have been performed to identify potential alternatives to ZnO that are more environmentally friendly. In this episode I talk with Dr. Neil Jaworksi as we discuss a trial that he performed at Trouw Nutrition that may provide a viable alternative to ZnO by targeting desirable...
Disease classification is a very important aspect for both swine producers and veterinarians. It helps provide a roadmap for how to manage viruses within herds, and PRRSV has been a major problem for the swine industry for many years. In the first episode, Dr. Derald Holtkamp shares with me Dr. Clayton Johnson about the many years he has spent developing his swine herd PRRS classification system. Listen to this short episode to learn more about it!
Meet the guest: Dr. Derald Holtkamp is a ...