Farmscape for July 27, 2018

A Research Scientist with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada says, by moving to precision feeding,  pork producers will have the opportunity to identify the most efficient animals.
Scientists working on behalf of Swine Innovation Porc have demonstrated that, by formulating rations to meet the specific needs of each pig, pork producers can reduce the overall nutritional requirements of the herd by about 25 percent.
Dr. Candido Pomar, a Research Scientist with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, says in addition to reducing feed costs precision feeding will provide the opportunity to identify those pigs that convert feed more efficiently.

Clip-Dr. Candido Pomar-Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada:
Now we are feeding individual animals and animals are like humans.
We are not all the same.
So we can now identify the peculiarities of each animal that makes one animal more efficient than another one.
That's what we are targeting now.
In the future we are going to be very precise in terms of defining the needs of the animal because we know which is the more efficient animal so we are going to provide him with the right level of nutrients according to his own efficiency, how he is transforming feeds and other animals we are going to feed them differently, not because he is performing more or less, but because he is more or less efficient.
This is a point where we are very excited here in the lab because we are looking to the individual animals, identifying their nutritional personalities.
In tying to get these answers we are discovering very nice things in terms of the animal's metabolism and the animal's behavior which also has an important effect on nutrient efficiency.

Dr. Pomar says where scientists are now able to reduce the nutritional needs of the herd by about 25 percent, that reduction could go even higher by identifying more efficient animals.
For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane.

       *Farmscape is a presentation of Sask Pork and Manitoba Pork