Page 2 - Australian Pork Newspaper

Producers evaluating our performance
Pig Industry Calendar of Events
2019
JUN 5 - 7 – World Pork Expo, Iowa, US www.worldpork.org
JUN 12-13 – Australian Biosecurity Symposium, Gold Coast, QLD www. biosym.com.au
JUN 18 – Victorian Pig Fair, Bendigo Harness Racing Facility, VIC E: vicpigfair@gmail.com
JUN 23-26 – International Symposium on Emerging and Remerging Pig Diseases, Santiago, Chile www. emerging2019.com/en
AUG 11 - 14 – The International Conference on Boar Semen Preservation, Hunter Valley, NSW www.boarsemen2019.com
AUG 25 - 28 – Asian Pig Veterinary Society Congress, Buscan, South Korea www.apvs2019.com/invit.html
AUG 26- 29 – SafePork Conference, Berlin, Germany www.safepork- conference.com
SEP 21- OCT 1 – Royal Melbourne Show, Melbourne Showgrounds VIC royalshow.com.au
OCT 19 - 21 – Leman China Swine Conference, Zhengzhou, China www. vetmed.umn.edu/news-events/leman- china-swine-conference
NOV 17 - 20 – Australasian Pig Science Association Conference, Adelaide, SA www.apsa.asn.au
How to supply event details: Send all details to Australian Pork Newspaper, PO Box 387, Cleveland, Qld 4163, call 07 3286 1833 fax: 07 3821 2637, email: ben@porknews.com.au
porknews.com.au
07 3286 1833
THE focus of this month’s article will be some key highlights from my recent visit to the US where I attended the American Society of Animal Science’s Mid- West meeting held from March 11-13 in Omaha, Nebraska.
I also had the opportu- nity to visit the National Pork Board as well as pig nutrition and veterinary research groups at Kan- sas State University, Iowa State University and the University of Minnesota.
With this, I’d like to ex- press my thanks to the Australasian Pig Science Association for travel funds awarded to me as part of the Batterham Me- morial Award (of which I was the grateful recipient way back in November 2015!).
The ASAS MidWest meeting is regarded as the key pig nutrition confer- ence in the US and was attended by around 1000 delegates.
While production chal- lenges resulting from the prevalence of endemic diseases in the US, includ- ing porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome and porcine epidemic di- arrhoea virus, are differ- ent to our own, there are interesting learnings for our industry to take on board.
In this regard, Assoc Prof Nick Gabler from Iowa State University discussed outcomes of studies conducted to de- termine how PRRS virus modulates weaner growth performance, tissue accre- tion and energy utilisa- tion.
It was explained that pigs infected with PRRS took 35 days post-inocu- lation to retain feed intake levels comparable with control animals with ad- libitum access to feed.
Pigs infected with PRRS were 15kg lighter in body weight on day 35 post- inoculation and as a per- centage of body weight, had a larger lung, heart and spleen mass com- pared with control ani- mals.
Reduced tissue accre- tion rates of 30-60 per- cent were also observed for PRRS-infected pigs compared with control animals.
It was shown that over the 35-day post-inocu- lation period that PRRS infection reduced aver-
age daily feed intake by 51 percent and average daily gain by 58 percent compared to the control animals, however feed ef- ficiency was not altered over the 35-day challenge period.
This suggests that ap- petite may explain most of the PRRS disease pheno- type and further work is under way to understand how nutritional manipula- tion of the diet, including amending lysine to me- tabolisable energy ratios in the diet, may stimulate appetite.
While Australia is free from PRRS, supported by our biosecurity protocols, Dr Gabler posed whether the impact of bacterial in- fections in the pig results in similar effects as viral challenges.
This has relevance to our industry.
It will be interesting to keep abreast of this re- search program, being progressed at Iowa State University as a collabora- tive program between the Department of Animal Science and Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory, particularly if diseases contributing to production losses in Australia (such as ileitis) are investigated.
This conference also provided a great oppor- tunity for outcomes from Australian Pork Limited- funded R&D to be pre- sented and discussed.
Danni Wijesiriwardana is undertaking her PhD at the University of Mel- bourne and is conduct- ing experimental work as part of APL 2014/461 ‘Optimising the progeny of first-litter sows in the Australian herd’.
Danni presented her work as an oral paper en- titled ‘Characterisation of poor gastrointestinal tract development in gilt prog- eny’ at the meeting.
To provide some back- ground to this, gilt proge- ny typically have a poorer
lifetime growth perform- ance than sow progeny as an outcome of being lighter at birth, at weaning and at sale.
Morbidity, mortality and medication rates of gilt progeny have also been consistently shown to be higher than sow progeny.
Overall, this negatively impacts on herd produc- tivity given that fewer and lighter pigs from gilt prog- eny are sold for slaugh- ter and the longer time required for gilt progeny to achieve targeted sale weights increases feed costs.
Danni described that her work has involved harvesting piglet gastro- intestinal tissue samples at birth, at 24 hours and pre- and post-weaning (28 v 29 days) and progeny from both sows (parity 2 or 3) and gilts raised under commercial condi- tions were used.
Tissue samples were taken from the stomach, colon (large intestine), je- junum (middle section of the small intestine) and ileum (final part of the small intestine).
These tissue samples were used to quantify the barrier integrity and
macronutrient permeabil- ity of the gastrointestinal tract.
Some interesting find- ings have been made:
• The barrier integrity of the stomach at birth was reduced in gilt prog- eny compared with sow progeny.
• The permeability of smaller molecules in the jejunum over the first 24-hour neonatal period was increased in gilt prog- eny.
• The permeability of smaller molecules in the ileum was also increased in gilt progeny at 24 hours.
• Over the weaning pe- riod, the permeability of small and large molecules in the ileum was influ- enced by parity – it was higher in progeny from gilts compared with sows. It may be that reduced gastrointestinal integrity of gilt progeny could be impacting on their life- time growth performance.
• Gilt progeny had lighter intestinal weights than sows at weaning. It was not considered that gilt progeny exhibit com- pensatory organ growth prior to weaning – which may reflect lower milk intake of these progeny. Interventions to increase gastrointestinal growth and development of gilt progeny prior to weaning should be explored.
Overall, these findings reflect a reduction in the development of the gas- trointestinal tract in gilt progeny compared to sow progeny.
A poster presentation was also made by Huu Hieu Le, an APL-funded PhD student who is un- dertaking his studies at
the University of Mel- bourne.
Huu’s paper is titled ‘Effect of selenium and superoxide dismutase supplementation on heat stressed pigs’.
Heat stress compromis- es efficient production of pigs, in part by increasing oxidative stress and in- flammation, particularly in the gastrointestinal tract, and can result in reduced growth, reduced feed efficiency, decreased carcass quality, reduced reproductive performance of sows and increased mortality of sows and fin- isher pigs.
Huu’s work aimed to in- vestigate if supplementa- tion of the antioxidants selenium, superoxide dis- mutase or selenium plus superoxide dismutase could ameliorate heat stress in the grower fe- male pig.
Pigs were held in cli- mate-controlled rooms under thermoneutral (22C) or heat stress condi- tions (eight hours at 35C, 16 hours at 28C).
Overall, a reduction in inflammatory responses was observed with the inclusion of antioxidants into the diet.
Theseoutcomesindicate selenium and superoxide dismutase may be benefi- cial supplements to add to the toolbox to ameliorate the impact of seasonal heat stress in pigs.
For further information on any items discussed in this article, please contact me on 0423 056 045 or heather.channon@austral ianpork.com.au
APRIL Industry Placement Program starts at Rivalea and SunPork
☛ from P1
tionship between energy intake and protein depo- sition in 60-100kg pigs.
Additionally, Ms Craig will co-ordinate and fa- cilitate experiments as principal investigator in a new APL-funded pro- ject at Rivalea examin- ing gilt progeny.
Ms Pridgeon, who has a Bachelor of Animal Sci- ence and has been em-
ployed at SunPork Farms’ Wasleys Piggery for the past two years, will be mentored by SunPork staff David Lines, David Maclean, Kate Plush and Sally Tritton.
She will work on two APRIL-funded projects concerning the impor- tant industry issue of seasonal infertility, with Dr Kate Plush of Sun- Pork Farms South and
Dr Sean O’Leary, Uni- versity of Adelaide.
APRIL’s Education Advisory Committee, chaired by Prof Frank Dunshea of the Univer- sity of Melbourne, con- sidered and objectively assessed eight very high-quality IPP appli- cations last September before announcing the two inaugural IPPs.
www.APRI.com.au
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Page 2 – Australian Pork Newspaper, April 2019
www.porknews.com.au
by HEATHER CHANNON Research and Innovation General Manager
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