Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
nutrient levels are determined a priori and served to heterogeneous populations over specified
periods of time. It is demonstrated that feeding pigs individually with diets tailored daily to their
individual lysine requirements made it possible to obtain similar intake and growth results to con-
ventional feeding systems. Precision feeding reduced lysine intake by more than 25% and feeding
costs by more than 8%. Precision feeding is an effective approach to improve nutrient utilization ef-
ficiency, to reduce nutrient excretion and feed costs, and thus it is proposed to the swine industry as
an essential tool to enhance sustainability and competitiveness.
Introduction
feeding pigs with daily tailored diets using
individual precision feeding techniques
may be an effective approach to improving
feed and nutrient efficiencies, and reducing
feeding costs and the excess of the most eco-
nomically and environmentally detrimental
nutrients (Pomar et al ., 2010). However, the
proper implementation of precision feeding
in livestock production systems is chal-
lenged by the reliability of the numerical
methods estimating in real time the require-
ments for each individual nutrient, the de-
vices collecting real-time information from
the farm and the individual animals, and
the feeder device that provides the right
feed to each pig within the herd in the right
amount at the right time. The objective of
this chapter is to describe the key elements
of precision feeding with special emphasis
on the real-time estimation of nutrient re-
quirements in growing-inishing pigs. Pre-
liminary experimental results comparing
individual precision feeding with conven-
tional group feeding systems are also pre-
sented.
Precision livestock farming is an innovative
and integrated production approach based
on the utilization of advanced technologies
and up-to-date scientific knowledge in ani-
mal sciences (Berckmans, 2004), with the
objective of optimizing animal production
and the management of the productive pro-
cesses (Groot Koerkamp et al ., 2007) by con-
trolling the variability that exists among farm
animals (Wathes et  al ., 2008; van Milgen
et al ., 2012). A relevant contribution in this
regard is the development of precision feed-
ing systems (Niemi, 2006; Pomar et  al .,
2009b; Pomar and Pomar, 2012). Precision
feeding lays the groundwork for addressing
key issues in today's intensive livestock
farming, which are: (i) reducing feeding cost
by improving feed and nutrient efficiencies;
(ii) improving production system sustainabil-
ity by increasing profitability and reducing
environmental footprints; and (iii) increasing
food safety through traceability.
In group-fed pigs, precision feeding re-
quires defining feeding programmes that
closely meet but without excess, the nutrient
requirements of the group (Patience, 1996).
Since in young pigs their appetite (i.e. in kilo-
grammes of feed per day) increases faster than
their daily nutrient requirements (i.e. g/day),
the optimal dietary concentration of nutrients
(i.e. in g/kg of feed) progressively decreases
during the growing period (NRC, 2012). Indeed,
nutrient efficiency can be improved by the
concomitant adjustment of the dietary con-
centration of nutrients to the estimated re-
quirements of the herd (Bourdon et  al .,
1995) using multi-phase feeding systems (Le-
tourneau Montminy et  al ., 2005). However,
the requirements of the individuals within a
herd show large variation (Pomar et  al .,
2003; Brossard et  al ., 2009) and, therefore,
Precision Feeding
Feed cost is by far the greatest input cost in
pork production and improving feed effi-
ciency has a great impact on farm profit-
ability. In growing-finishing pig operations,
feeding programmes are proposed to opti-
mize population responses at minimal feed
costs. However, nutrient requirements vary
greatly among the pigs of a given population
(Pomar et  al ., 2003; Brossard et  al ., 2009;
Quiniou et al ., 2013; Vautier et al ., 2013) and
for each pig these requirements change over
time following individual patterns (Pomar
et al ., 2010). In order to optimize population
responses, nutrients are provided on farms
 
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