Sows in North American hog barns get the highest-quality, most nutritious feed available, but that’s not necessarily something to brag about, says an English researcher.
Peter Brooks of the University of Plymouth told the recent Manitoba Swine Seminar that this kind of food is probably creating a lot of behavioural problems and could be costing hog producers money.
Mixing fibrous material into feed and providing bulky bedding can eliminate a lot of these problems.
It’s not that the sows are spoiled, Brooks said. It’s just that the pig is a blue collar animal that is often fed the equivalent of fine French cuisine. The pig that wants big portions of low quality food is instead fed canapŽs fit for the gourmet.
Read Also
Calf hormone implants can give environmental, financial wins
Hormone implants can lead to bigger calves — reducing greenhouse gas intensity, land use intensity and giving the beef farmer more profit, Manitoba-based model suggests.
“You’re giving an animal something in a much smaller package that it can eat much quicker,” Brooks in a later interview.
“It just isn’t feeling full.”
The result, studies have shown, is frustrated sows biting each others tails, fighting over feeding stations and slurping large amounts of water to fill their empty bellies.
In Europe, where regulations force producers to house gestating sows in large open pens, controlling this violence and aggression has been an important way of minimizing losses from damaged carcasses, Brooks said.
A study in the United Kingdom found that mixing sugar beet pulp into the feed reduced frustrated, non-eating visits to the feed stations by 20 to 30 percent and minimized other bad behaviour.
Giving the sows lots of bedding also made them more mellow. If straw was used for bedding, they would eat it, providing additional fibre. It also gave them something to do with their jaws.
In the wild, pigs spend between 25 and 60 percent of their time foraging and eating, so if sows in a barn quickly finish eating high calorie feed, they become frustrated and bored. Providing bedding allows the pig to root around for goodies and to chew.
Pigs that don’t get enough “gut fill” also tend to drink large amounts of water, which can increase manure problems. For the pig in a barn with only high grade feed, drinking water is often the only way to feel full.
“Anyone who’s been on a diet knows that when you’re counting calories … you feel hungry,” Brooks said.
“I’m a classic. I do it just like a pig. I want to take in more fluid if I try to cut down my food intake. The trouble is, I usually make it beer, so it doesn’t work.”
