Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
underestimated the pigs' Lys requirements,
given that maximal APD and ADG were
achieved at 115% of Lys requirements. In
terms of feed efficiency, optimum perform-
ance seemed to be achieved at a lower Lys
level. From
70
to 100 kg, the method ad-
equately estimated the pigs' requirements,
given that optimum performance was achieved
at 100% of Lys requirements. The two genetic
lines did not differ significantly in terms of
ADG, APD, protein or fat lipid masses and,
therefore, the ability of the proposed method
of estimating requirements to automatically
take into account the composition of the
gain could not be evaluated. The detailed re-
sults of this trial have been published else-
where (Cloutier
et al
., 2013).
of minimizing the cost of the consumed feed
(CAN$/pig) rather than the cost per kilo-
gramme of the formulated feed ($/kg) (Joan-
nopoulos, 2012; Joannopoulos
et al
., 2013).
In the first trial evaluating the impact
of feeding pigs individually with daily
tailored diets (named AIPF I),
60
barrows
with an average initial BW of 41.2 ± 3.9 kg
were randomly assigned to the four follow-
ing treatments:
• Tailored three-phase feeding programme
(3P) providing within each phase a fixed
blend of diets A and B calculated at the
beginning of each feeding phase to sat-
isfy the Lys requirement of the 80th per-
centile pig of this treatment group as
suggested by Hauschild
et al
. (2010).
The level of Lys given during the entire
feeding phase was estimated during the
first 3 days of each phase.
• Commercial three-phase feeding pro-
gramme (COM) in which pigs were fed
with complete diets provided by a com-
mercial feed manufacturer.
• Daily-phase group feeding (MPG) in which
all pigs of this treatment group received
the same blend calculated at the beginning
of each day to satisfy the Lys requirement
of the 80th percentile pig of this group.
• Individually tailored daily-phase feeding
(MPI) in which pigs were fed with a blend
of diets A and B satisfying the Lys require-
ments as described for precision feed-
ing systems earlier in this document.
The Impact of Feeding Individual Pigs
Using Precision Feeding Techniques
The impact of moving from a conventional
three-phase feeding programme to the pre-
cision feeding system on animal perform-
ance, nutrient utilization and feed cost in
growing-finishing operations was evaluated
in two recent studies (Andretta
et al
., 2014)
completed at the Dairy and Swine Research
and Development Centre of Agriculture and
Agri-Food Canada at Sherbrooke, Quebec.
For this purpose, five automatic feeders
similar to those described in the previous
experiments were used to feed the pigs dur-
ing the two
84-
day experimental periods
herein described.
Two diets (named A and B) were formu-
lated without additives. The diets differed
from each other in the concentration of nu-
trients, diet A being a high nutrient concen-
tration diet formulated to satisfy the require-
ments of the most demanding pig at the
beginning of the growing period, and diet B
being a low nutrient concentration diet for-
mulated to satisfy the requirements of the
least demanding pig at the end of the grow-
ing period. These two diets were formulated
independently as complete feeds,
1
although
significant feed cost reductions (>1.2%) can
be obtained by formulating these feeds sim-
ultaneously, letting them be complementary
rather than complete feeds, with the objective
In a second trial (named AIPF II),
70
pigs
(
35
females and
35
barrows) with an aver-
age initial BW of 30.4 ± 2.2 kg were assigned
to five dietary treatments as follows:
• Three-phase feeding programme (3P)
similar to the equivalent treatment of
AIPF I trial; and
• Four individually tailored daily-phase
feeding programmes in which pigs
were served with blends of A and B
diets providing 110% (MPI110), 100%
(MPI100), 90% (MPI90) or 80% (MPI80)
of the estimated Lys requirements. The
MPI100 treatment of this AIPF II trial is
then equivalent to the MPI treatment of
the previous (AIPF I) trial.