Swine Grist - Summer 2021

Swine Grist

A PERIODIC NEWSLETTER PRODUCED

BY GRAND VALLEY FORTIFIERS VOLUME 23, ISSUE 2 | SUMMER 2021

Dear Friends, It is normally at this time of year that we have the privilege of reconnecting in person with many of our customers and industry friends at the Alberta and Ontario Pork Congress. These types of industry events also typically provide the opportunity to introduce new GVF team members to many of our long-standing customers. Sadly, both of these events were cancelled due to COVID restrictions.

Thankfully we are witnessing the re-opening of our provinces this summer and we look forward to visiting with you again soon! In the meantime, please allow us to introduce you to our new CFO, COO, VP of Sales and PhD., Monogastric Nutritionist through this edition of the GVF Swine Grist. Additionally, we are very pleased to witness the on-going development of valuable data analytic tools and dynamic, real time reporting for our customers, helping them to increase their profitability with better on-farm business intelligence.

With the high pork prices and high feed prices that we are experiencing, it is important optimize the profitability of each hog shipped, in order to make up for the lack of profitability in 2020. We trust that you enjoy this edition of the Grand Valley Fortifiers Swine Grist.

Wishing you a successful growing season and pleasurable summer!

Sincerely, Ian Ross, President & CEO

SENIOR LEADERSHIP TEAM UPDATES

by: IAN ROSS President & CEO, GVF group of companies

T

he year 2020 was a milestone year for Grand Valley Fortifiers with the company completing sixty years in business. Unfortunately, due to COVID-19 restrictions in place throughout the year, we were unable to hold our 60th celebration event with customers and friends the way that we would have liked. It is amazing to know that many of our current team members and customers have been working together for over three or four decades, more than half of the company’s existence.

As the company ages and matures, so do each of us that work within it and, eventually we begin to witness the retirement of long term, very valuable team members. In the last year or so, we have celebrated the retirement of Paul Moser (Swine Specialist - Manitoba), Rick Faber (Dairy Specialist – Ontario), Jim Whitehouse (Swine Specialist – Ontario), Peter Faus (CFO – Ontario) and most recently, Bruce Currie (Swine Specialist – Alberta). As many of you know, we also celebrated my father’s life, with his passing on November 5th.

As we look to the future, seeking to continue to grow the positive impact that our people, products, programs and services have on livestock farmers across the country, we have been adding new bench strength to the GVF group of companies’ teams in a number of our divisions and departments.

Today, we want to introduce you to the new members of the Senior Leadership Team, who have joined my brother David and I in the leadership of our company, over the past several months.

In late November 2020, Brian Gonder joined our Brian Gonder, team fulfilling the role of Chief Operating Officer.

Chief Operating Officer Brian has worked previously in the complete feed GRAND VALLEY FORTIFIERS PO Box 726 Cambridge ON N1R 5W6 1-800-567-4400 grandvalley.com

business in Alberta, the baked goods industry in Ontario and more recently, for the global supplier of feed ingredients, DSM. Brian, his wife Cassondra, two girls and one boy live in Belmont Ontario. Since joining the GVF group of companies, Brian has engaged in bringing our production, logistics, purchasing, and customer service teams together across the country, seeking to grow our efficiencies, cost competitiveness and responsiveness to customer needs.

At the end of January 2021, JD D’Elia was added to our Senior Leadership Team, transitioning into the role of Chief Financial Officer as Peter Faus, our CFO of 32 years moved toward his planned retirement at the end of February. JD, his wife Hilary and three boys aged 15, 13 and 10 live in Waterloo, Ontario.

JD joins the GVF group with almost twenty years of finance and operations related experience in three global companies, Nutreco, Blackberry and Sunovo.

In his first few months with the company, JD has JD D’Elia, been focusing on expanding the utilization of our Chief Financial Officer current ERP software, reorganizing the finance team with a national purview and engaging with me on some business development opportunities.

The first of February 2021, we were pleased to have Kevin Weppler join the Senior Leadership Team, moving into a new role with our company, Vice President of Sales. Kevin joins the GVF group of companies after an illustrious career that started in the complete feed business in Ontario, moving into the livestock pharma sector with Elanco Animal Health where he had the opportunities to work in numerous countries in North and South and Latin America.

In the last dozen or so years, Kevin has settled back Kevin Weppler, into an Ontario focused work life with a multinational Vice President of Sales livestock nutrition company. Kevin and his wife, SuIan Ross, President & CEO | David Ross, VP & CMO Martin Clunies, Ph.D. | Bruce Schumann | Adam Totafurno | Youngji Rho, Ph.D., Monogastric Nutritionists Michael Peckover, Publisher

Table 2: Performance at Various Timepoints on Trial

ezanne live in Wellesley, Ontario and have two grown children – a daughter, Kayla in Teachers College and his son Wyatt is in Chiropractic College and getting married on June 26th. Kevin has spent the first number of months getting to know the forty livestock specialists that the GVF group of companies has serving producers across the country, their regional leaders and seeking to grow our complete feed capabilities in Ontario.

With the lack of opportunity to participate in physical trade shows and conferences for over a year now, we have not had the occasion to introduce many customers to these new members of our GVF leadership team in person. We certainly look forward to having this opportunity again in the future. Until then, please join us (virtually) in welcoming these three gentlemen to our team. We trust that you will enjoy working with them as much as we are. n

FEEDING THE LIGHTER AND YOUNGER WEANED PIG

by: VICTORIA SEIP Production Improvement Specialist, Grand Valley Fortifiers

I

n the last Grist article, we focused on the importance of weaning weight and age and how these two variables can drastically impact the efficiency and adaptation of weaning. To follow-up on that article, we conducted a trial aimed at a lighter pig at weaning and developed two budgets: one ideally targeted for a less than 6 kg weaned pig, and the other a more economic budget which our hypothesis predicted to be more cost effective but resulting in reduced performance.

The two feeding regimes can be seen in Table 1. At weaning, pigs were weaned into two rooms with approximately 29 pigs per pen. Pigs were weighed at weaning, after they had finished their starter pellets, and at the end of the trial. Medications were balanced for both feed programs.

Table 1: Feed Budget for Nursery Trial Aimed for Lighter Pig

Budget 1 (Recommended)

Budget 2 (Econo)

BioSure™ Ignite

1

—

BioSure™ Surge

—

1

BioSure™ Respond

2

2

BioForce® 180 BioForce® Piglet 32

5

3

Balance

Balance

The results at weighing can be seen in Table 2. As we predicted, throughout this trial, the pigs that received the recommended starter feed for the lighter pigs had improved performance in terms of weight gain and ADG, however it was a little more costly. The more economic budget performed quite well, however it didn’t meet the same gain advantage. It did achieve the goal of being more cost-conscious. Pigs were in the nursery for 47 days.

It is unknown why feed intake was substantially higher in the group that received the recommended budget. As expected, Budget 1, the more optimal program for a lighter weaned pig, had improved performance but did also come with added cost which is a result of a more nutrient dense starter feed along with 2 kg more of transition feed. The “boost” from this budget was to help the young pig more easily adapt and transition based on nutrient digestibility and palatability. Overall, both of these budgets had very good performance. It proved that there is a time and a place for a budget with a few extra kilograms of transition feed along with a starter targeted for a lighter weaning weight and age. If a health challenge is present, aiming for a budget that has these additional factors will help improve animal gains.

Budget 1 (Recommended)

Budget 2 (Econo)

Weaning Weight (kg)

6.32

6.40

13 Day Weight (kg)

9.75

9.64

47 Day Weight (kg)

32.05

30.80

13 Day Weight Gain (kg)

3.43

3.24

Overall Weight Gain (kg)

25.72

24.40

13 Day ADG (g/d)

261

244

Overall ADG (g/d)

546

516

13 Day FCR

0.92

0.96

1.6

1.49

Overall FCR 13 Day Feed Cost/Pig ($)

+12%

Final Feed Cost/Pig ($)

+14%

13 Day Cost/kg Gain ($)

+6.8%

Final Cost/kg Gain ($)

+10%

We would be pleased to answer any questions you may have related to your current nursery budget and how to make sure, based on your individual goals, that you are feeding the right program. For more information, please contact me directly or your Swine Specialist. n

CREATING A WINNING SHIPPING STRATEGY FOR FINISHING PIGS

by: PAUL DE ROND Swine Specialist, Grand Valley Fortifiers

M

odern pig farming requires more and more calculations due to the shrinking margins. Every cost item and every revenue must be optimized.

In Ontario, there are still large differences in profitability per finishing pigs observed between the farms. Because of this, it is useful to closely monitor each farm component on both the cost side and the revenue side. For a couple years we have successfully run the GVF Profit Finder™ tool to optimize shipping revenue for producers. With the high current cost of feed, it is now more important than ever to maximize the value of hogs shipped.

KPIs are Different for Every Farm

In practice, a very large spread is found in the shipping weights, backfat, loin and yield of hogs shipped by any single producer. Great variation is also seen with daily growth and feed conversion. All these index numbers are mutually dependent on each other to a greater or lesser extent, and each metric plays a part in determining the final revenue of the finishing pigs.

The optimal value of each ratio will depend on many factors such as the genetics used, the management system chosen, the preferences of the farm owner or the sales opportunities. As a result it is not easy to answer questions such as: ‘Can the shipping weight be higher?’, ‘Can the price paid be higher?’, ‘Should I aim for more growth or better feed conversion or more yield?’ Only by accurately collecting, organizing, and analyzing data for each specific farm, will producers be able to make the right decision(s) that leads to a higher return and increased farm profitability.

Shipping Weight

In practice (theory?), you should strive for the highest possible dressed weight within the desired shipping grid (provided, of course, that your finishing pigs do not get fat). Depending on your packer, the price per kg of pork will drop once your reach a certain dressed weight. The shipping weight of a

Swine Grist hog is determined, by the daily gain and the pen density. In general, it can be stated that increasing a hog’s weight will result in the pig putting on more fat.

Fat intake requires more energy and so the feed turnover will also increase.

On the other hand, a higher dressed weight means, the piglet cost per kg dressed weight decreases. Understanding from what weight these phenomena occur, is determined by the genetics and by the sex of the pigs.

In practice, producers experience both advantages and disadvantages when striving for a higher dressed weight. In reality, producers should not aim for a generally higher dressed weight, but instead a heavier weight for the lighter pigs.

Pen Density

On many farms, improved management and a significant increase in fertility of sows has led to an overcrowding in the nursery and finisher barn. The consequences of this overstocking are a higher infection pressure, increased frustration, an unfavorable barn climate and more aggressive behavior. All this results in decreased feed intake and therefore lower gain and higher (worse) feed conversion.

Shipping Early or Late and Loss of Margin

Two main factors to consider when optimizing your shipping time are: • To get the maximum gross margin per pig you must ship your pigs within your packer specific grid.

• Once the highest payout category within the grid is reached, shipping the pigs quickly is crucial.

Topping / Unloading

It is useful to ship the heaviest pigs from a pen earlier. By shipping the heaviest barrows earlier, you will help ensure they yield a better price per kg. Follow by shipping the gilts later, as they will weigh more, and yield a better price per kg, therefore also resulting in a higher dressed price paid.

It should also be noted that fasting is equally necessary when topping.

Topping results in a more optimal final weight, but it will also disrupt the ranking of the remaining pigs and thus cause extra stress.

Hog Optimization Tool

GVF now has a tool available to simulate your farm specific numbers to help determine your optimum shipping weight. The model also shows the optimum for your gross margin per pig compared to gross margin per pig space/year. This can be very important to maximize your farm revenue especially when you are short on finishing spaces. If you are a GVF customer and interested in running the numbers for your farm, I encourage you to reach out to your GVF Swine Specialist and indicate your interest. They can then set up an appointment with myself and we can run this simulation tool with you. n

a career in microbiology. However, an introduction to Dr. Kees de Lange helped her to realize that her passion was not in microbiology but in agriculture instead, specifically pigs.

As a result, Youngji decided to pursue her Masters of Science under the guidance of Dr Kees de Lange and Elijah Kiarie. The focus of her Masters was “Improving the nutritive value of corn distiller’s dried grains with solubles (DDGS) for growing pigs, using liquid feeding systems and fiber degrading enzymes. Following her Masters, Youngji pursued her PhD with her advisor Elijah Kiarie, expanding her knowledge on the application of using exogenous enzymes to enhance both the nutrient value and the functional value of DDGS and wheat shorts in grow-finish pigs. (To learn more about what she discovered, be sure to read her article also in this issue of the Swine Grist.)

Youngji’s studies in her Masters and PhD are extremely relevant to our swine industry today, as we look to maximize nutritive values of the feed ingredients we feed to pigs. As COVID restrictions lessen we hope to have the opportunity to introduce Youngji to many of you in person as she is excited to meet our customers and learn about their production systems.

Join us in welcoming Youngji to our team and the Canadian pork industry.

IMPROVING UTILIZATION OF FIBRE

by: YOUNGJI RHO Monogastric Nutritionist, Grand Valley Fortifiers

D

ried distillers grains with solubles (DDGS) and wheat middlings (WM) are commonly used in swine diets as they are a good source of energy and nutrients. However, they also contain a high concentration of fiber.

The high fiber content negatively influences nutrient availability and therefore, compromises the growth performance of pigs. To overcome this problem, fiber degrading enzymes (FDE) have been widely used. FDE help to alleviate this issue by promoting hydrolysis and solubilizing insoluble fiber fractions, thereby improving the digestibility and fermentability of nutrients in fibrous ingredients.

Fiber is often referred to as non-starch poly saccharides (NSP), which in other words, is a complex carbohydrate that monogastric animals cannot digest.

Among cereal grains/co-products, arabinoxylans are the major NSP, followed by cellulose and mixed-linked β-glucans (Figure 1). Therefore, FDE such as xylanase, β-glucanase and cellulase are most commonly added in diets containing these ingredients to improve their digestibility. However, when enzymes are added to pig diets containing co-products, the results are not always positive. This is where Youngji’s research objectives stemmed from.

Figure 1: Major non-starch polysaccharides in corn, wheat and their co-products. Data adapted from Bach Knudsen (2014), Jaworski et al. (2015) and Tiwari et al. (2019).

WELCOME YOUNGJI RHO Monogastric Nutritionist, Grand Valley Fortifiers

W

e at Grand Valley Fortifiers are proud and excited to announce the hiring of Dr. Youngji Rho as our new monogastric nutritionist. Youngji was born in South Korea but spent a lot of time abroad in Canada, a place where she now calls home. Her father is a practicing large animal veterinarian who also teaches at a national university in South Korea. He has spent time at the Ontario Veterinary College with his family which brought Youngji to Guelph. While doing her B.Sc. in Biological Sciences, at the University of Guelph, Youngji originally planned to pursue

For her master’s program with Drs. Kees de Lange and Elijah Kiarie, she worked on using FDE in a liquid feeding system to improve the feeding value of DDGS for growing pigs. The FDE used were a mix of xylanase and β-glucanase (XB). Prolonged soaking of feedstuff has been shown to improve nutrient digestibility in many other studies, so Dr. Rho tested two types of liquid feed: 1) steeping DDGS for a longer time with XB, and 2) using XB only (no steeping).

Results showed that adding XB without steeping improved the average daily gain (ADG) in the earlier phase and was linked to greater feed intake (FI). This effect was not seen when pigs were fed DDGS steeped with XB. DDGS steeped with XB was found to contain high levels of acetic acid and low levels of lactic

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acid, which may have decreased the palatability of the liquid feed and subsequently reduced FI. In contrast, a good quality liquid feed can be characterized by 1) high lactic acid concentration, 2) low acetic acid concentration, and 3) low pH. Despite the improvements in digestibility, the DDGS steeped with XB was less desirable for gut health. It was concluded that steeping feedstuffs has a great potential to improve nutritive values; however, the process should be carefully monitored in order to achieve good quality liquid feed.

For Youngji’s Ph.D. thesis, working with Dr. Elijah Kiarie, she carried out three experiments to better understand how FDE work on co-products, specifically DDGS and WM. First, the chemical composition, including sugars (sugar monomers) of corn, DDGS, wheat and WM were analyzed (Table 1).

As expected, greater concentration of arabinose and xylose monomers were seen in co-products, which indicates greater arabinoxylan concentration.

Table 1: Chemical composition and sugar monomers in corn, wheat, DDGS and WM. Data from Rho et al., (2020).

Item, %

Corn

DDGS

Wheat

WM

DM

88.5

91.3

88.5

86.6

ADF

4.11

11.3

4.32

11.9

NDF

13.8

33.3

15.7

35.1

Fat

2.97

7.98

1.43

3.99

CP

7.55

28.4

11.1

16.3

1.2

3.3

1.2

2.2

Figure 2: Fiber (Neutral detergent fiber (NDF), acid detergent fiber (ADF)) disappearance when ileal digesta collected from pigs fed DDGS or WM were incubated with or without enzymes.

Enzyme activity was detected in both pigs fed with or without XBC (Figure 3). The enzyme detected from pigs fed diets without XBC was due to gut microbes producing the enzymes. However, XBC fed pigs had a greater enzyme activity across the GIT. Enzyme activity was lowest in the stomach, which was expected, as low pH can inhibit or inactivate enzymes. However, Youngji found that the enzyme activity recovered after passing through the stomach.

Figure 3. Enzyme (xylanase) activity in GIT of pigs fed corn-DDGS or wheat-WM diets with (+) or without (-) XBC.

Sugar Monomers Xylose Arabinose

1.2

4.4

1.0

2.3

Mannose

0.3

0.7

0.3

0.3

Galactose

0.7

1.2

0.5

0.8

Glucose

31

5.8

27.6

23.7

A/X Ratio

1.0

1.3

1.0

0.8

Fiber is intertwined with proteins and different types of fiber fractions.

Therefore, Dr. Rho hypothesized that the combination of FDE and protease may be more effective in breaking down fiber in DDGS and WM than just using FDE by themselves. The selected FDE mix was xylanase, β-glucanase and cellulase (XBC). There were three enzyme treatments, 1) XBC, 2) protease, and 3) XBC + protease, that were tested on each of the raw ingredients in vitro. Enzymes were added to DDGS or WM and were steeped for up to 72 h.

She found that protease alone had minimal effect in breaking down fiber in DDGS and WM compared to XBC. XBC was as effective as XBC+protease in fiber hydrolysis, as there were small to no differences among these two treatments. Results also indicated that steeping for 12 to 24 h with XBC increased monosaccharide availability and reduced fiber concentration. But, the efficacy of XBC showed differences among the two ingredients.

After confirming that the XBC alone was effective in hydrolyzing fiber fractions in the raw ingredients, Youngji wanted to test whether the enzymes could break down fibrous components that pigs typically cannot digest in their upper gut. In this study, she compared XBC to a single xylanase with a greater dose. Enzymes were applied to ileal digesta collected from pigs fed DDGS or WM diets and were incubated in a pH 6 solution for 24 h.

This solution was used to mimic the gut pH. Results showed that XBC was more effective in breaking down undigested fiber fractions than single xylanase. As in previous experiment, XBC had a greater effect on WM digesta compared to DDGS digesta (Figure 2). It was speculated that the reason for this was due to the processing differences. As DDGS undergoes intensive drying and fermentation, the fiber fractions are aggregated making it more difficult for the pigs and added enzymes to digest and break down.

Lastly, XBC was added in corn-DDGS or wheat-WM diets and fed to growing pigs to determine the growth performance and digestibility of fiber. In addition, enzyme activity in the gastro-intestinal tract (GIT) was tested, as enzymes are pH sensitive and can be deactivated in some cases.

Additionally, pigs fed XBC had higher ADG, but this wasn’t linked to FI. Instead, the improved ADG was explained by higher enzyme activity in the GIT which improved fiber digestibility, monosaccharide release, and healthier gastrointestinal morphology. Her thesis concluded that, FDE increased fiber hydrolysis under in vitro, in vivo- in vitro, and in vivo conditions, which improves the availability of nutrients that are usually inaccessible to pigs. She suggested that further research is required in order to find out the optimum dose and combination of enzymes.

Dr. Youngji Rho’s research has a tremendous application for our industry today as we continually look for ways to reduce the cost per kg in our production systems. Dr. Rho has shown through her research that we can achieve this a number of ways with the right selection of enzymes. We can improve the digestibility of fibrous feedstuffs (wheat shorts and DDGS) making them more available to the pig and allowing higher inclusion rates in diets, while capturing additional economic savings from their increased use. We can also improve feed conversion of producers’ current feed rations, by making previously undigestible components in the diet more bioavailable to pigs and poultry, which will improve producers’ bottom line.

We are excited to have Dr. Youngji Rho on our team and welcome the opportunity for you to work with her technical expertise to help maximize the profitability of your farm. n

Thought for the Day

The righteous care for the needs of their animals, but the kindest acts of the wicked are cruel.

11 Those who work their land will have abundant food,but those who chase fantasies have no sense.

12 The wicked desire the stronghold of evildoers, but the root of the righteous endures.

Proverbs 12:10-21, NIV 10