Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
taken into account by the empirical model
component. Body protein deposition as a
proportion of ADG has, however, been re-
cently included in the model (Rivest
et al
.,
unpublished data) to increase model accur-
acy, and other factors such as health status
may require further attention.
Precision livestock farming is proposed
to the swine industry as an essential tool to
enhance sustainability and competitiveness
as described by Pomar and Pomar (2012).
For this purpose, innovative feeding sys-
tems controlled by effective decision sup-
port systems are being developed to:
•
Manage feeds and animals by advanced
computerized technologies
to: (i) allow
real-time off-farm monitoring of feeds
and animals for optimal slaughter and
production strategies; (ii) reduce labour
requirements and costs by automatic
monitoring and management of feeds and
animals; and (iii) allow early identifica-
tion of disease and precise application
of individual treatments, thus improv-
ing herd performance and reducing
veterinarian costs.
•
Allow easy application of optimal pro-
duction strategies in each farm
to: (i) auto-
matically manage individual feed supply
(e.g.
ad libitum
or restricted feeding)
and composition (e.g. providing higher
levels of phosphorus to future reproduc-
tion gilts, limiting or enhancing fatness
to market pigs, etc.) to manipulate growth
rate and composition of each pig to ad-
dress specific production or target mar-
kets; (ii) facilitate the evaluation of new
feeds and feed sub-products; and (iii)
facilitate the determination of nutrient
requirements.
•
Feed pigs within a herd according to their
daily individual nutrient requirements
to:
(i) reduce feeding costs by reducing ex-
pensive (protein, phosphorus and others)
excess nutrients in pig diets; (ii) reduce
feed manufacturing, storage, management
and shipping costs by using the same pre-
mixes for all farms; and (iii) reduce nitrogen,
phosphorus and other polluting manure
constituents and thus the amount of land
required for manure application.
Note
1
Compound feeds or diets are said to be complete in this chapter when they are formulated
to be served as unique feed and they provide the animals with all the daily required nutri-
ents; complementary feeds or premixes need to be blended with other feeds or premixes to
become complete feeds.
References
Andretta, I., Pomar, C., Rivest, J., Pomar, J., Lovatto, P.A. and Radunz-Neto, J. (2014) Effet de l'alimen-
tation de précision sur les performances, l'excrétion de nutriments et le coût d'alimentation du
porc charcutier.
Journées de la Recherche Porcine
46,
107-112.
Baker, D.H. (1986) Problems and pitfalls in animal experiments designed to establish dietary require-
ments for essential nutrients.
Journal Nutrition
116,
2339-2349.
Baker, D.H., Batal, A.B., Parr, T.M., Augspurger, N.R. and Parsons, C.M. (2002) Ideal ratio (relative to
lysine) of tryptophan, threonine, isoleucine, and valine for chicks during the second and third
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81,
485-494.
Berckmans, D. (2004) Automatic on-line monitoring of animals by precision livestock farming.
Confer-
ence on Animal Production in Europe: The Way Forward in a Changing World
, ISPAIA, Ploufra-
gan, France, pp.
27-31.
Bikker, P., Verstegen, M.W., Campbell, R.G. and Kemp, B. (1994) Digestible lysine requirement of gilts
with high genetic potential for lean gain, in relation to the level of energy intake.
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Science
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1744-1753.
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