Smithfield's top hog

Kitchener-based Schneider Corp., Canada's second-largest pork packer, is now a cog in the world's biggest pork machine.

Owner Smithfield Foods, the US$4-billion-a-year pork conglomerate based in Smithfield, Va., became the largest hog producer in the world with the acquisition last month of Carroll's Foods of North Carolina, America's second-largest hog production company. The deal, less than the US$500 million earlier announced, increases Smithfield's level of vertical integration to 30 per cent from 14. The company expects to produce 5.6 million hogs from 330,000 sows and process 19 million hogs in fiscal 2000.

Schneider, which was purchased by Smithfield last December, went on a buying spree of its own in April, purchasing one-third of Saskatoon family-owned packer Mitchell's Gourmet Foods, Canada's third-largest value-added pork processor, according to the Western Producer. Schneider CEO Douglas Dodds confirmed Schneider would eventually control the $300-million-a-year processor. The two companies will proceed with a $50-million expansion to Mitchell's Saskatoon plant.

Smithfield CEO Joseph Luter III says the Carroll's acquisition achieves what might have taken up to a decade of expansion, "assuming such new production could even be added or developed given the current political and environmental climate."

The deal includes Carroll's 16-per cent interest in Circle Four, a hog production partnership with Smithfield based in Utah, and Carroll's turkey interests.

Luter vows he has "no plans to increase our hog production in the United States in any significant way in the foreseeable future.

"This acquisition has put Smithfield Foods at what we consider to be an optimum and prudent level of vertical integration."

© copyright 1999 Agricultural Publishing Company Limited.



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Stewart was power pioneer

Producers head off to the 26th annual Ontario Pork Congress next month thanks in part to the efforts of long-time Ontario Hydro ag specialist Stan Stewart.

Stewart, who died in February in London in his 80th year, was well known to pork producers, particularly in southwestern Ontario, where he would advise on ventilation, heating and energy conservation.

Stewart also was active in helping launch the first Pork Congress back in 1973. He served on the exhibits committee, and in 1976 won the "King of Hams" competition in which contestants barbecued their favourite pork product.

In the early part of his 34-year career with Ontario Hydro's agricultural division, adequate ventilation was an unknown science on many farms. Stewart co-operated with Ontario agriculture ministry engineers to develop improved ventilation techniques for barns.

A member of the Toastmasters, which helped improve his public speaking skills, he gave numerous livestock seminars. Stewart also spearheaded the formation of the southwestern branch of the Canadian Agricultural Marketing Association, serving as first president. He was an ardent member of the Chatham and Woodstock Barbershop Quartet, and an avid golfer.

Stewart is survived by his wife Betty, five children and many grandchildren. - Andy Bunn

© copyright 1999 Agricultural Publishing Company Limited.



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Swine search engine

The Internet grows by the second, and it can take a great deal of time and money to access specific topics using the various search engines.

A mine of pig information can be as close as your PC or Mac, however, thanks to a diskette produced by Dr. Mike Meredith of the Pig Disease Information Centre in the U.K. "Pigs on the Internet - Swine & Food Safety Resources Guide" has 15 different sections ranging across the pig information spectrum - diseases, management, equipment, nutrition to list a few.

The March 1999 edition provides access to the world's largest on-line veterinary diagnostic database. There is also a new section on meat technology.

Approximate cost is C$66. For more information: Pig Disease Information Centre, 4 New Close Farm Business Park, Lolworth, Cambridge, U.K. CB3 8DS pdic@btinternet.com - Stuart Lumb

© copyright 1999 Agricultural Publishing Company Limited.



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U.K. update

Pork prices are slowly creeping up in the U.K., approaching break-even. The rest of Europe, however, is still about six months behind, making importing attractive, much to the annoyance of U.K. producers.

Moves are afoot for two of the U.K.'s pig farming organizations, the National Farmers Union (Pigs Division) and the British Pig Association, to amalgamate.

The U.K.'s national Meat and Livestock Commission (MLC) is also to become more accountable to producers, following severe criticism from grassroots pig farmers that it wasn't doing enough to promote pork and bacon at a time when prices have been the worst in living memory.

The MLC will pump another C$8.4 million into promoting the pork quality standard over the next three months.

The move follows a $6-million campaign launched in February, including $1.2 million on television advertising, $1.7 million on pork trade promotions, $1.9 million on bacon, gammon and ham promotions, $240,000 on sausage promotions, $1.2 million on promotions in the catering sector and $240,000 on new product marketing. - Stuart Lumb

© copyright 1999 Agricultural Publishing Company Limited.



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PRRS can be beaten

University of Guelph trial produces PRRS-free pigs from PRRS-positive pigs

BY CATE DEWEY

Our team at the Ontario Veterinary College, in collaboration with Donaldson International and 10 swine producers in Ontario and Quebec, has succeeded in producing PRRS-negative pigs from PRRS positive herds.

The purpose of the project was to develop a management system that would consistently produce PRRS-negative 60 to 90-day old pigs. The project involved the classification of breeding herds as stable or unstable, recording the use of the PRRS vaccine in the herd and then moving early weaned pigs to an off-site nursery.

"Stable" sow herd

For this project, we defined a stable breeding herd as one that had sows with similar PRRS levels of immunity, did not bring in any new replacement animals or have clinical signs of PRRS in the past 12 months. If a sow herd is not stable, the sows can easily spread the PRRS virus to the piglet. When this happens, the piglets carry the PRRS virus into the nursery.

In 1998, we blood tested 30 breeding females from each farm to determine their PRRS-immune status. Sows in a wide range of parities and stages of gestation were tested.

The blood was tested with a PRRS IDEXX ELISA test. The results of this test, (see New PRRSpectives, page 13) are presented as S/P ratios or sample-to-positive ratios. Results from 0-0.4 indicate a negative result; from 0.4-2.4 indicate a protective immunity; and higher than 2.4 indicate an active infection.

Therefore, in a stable, protected herd, we would want all sows to have a level from 0.4 to 2.4. A stable, vaccinated sow herd had at least 27 of 30 sows with a level less than 2.0. A stable, unvaccinated sow herd had at least 27 of 30 sows with levels less than 1.0 and not more than 3 sows with levels greater than 2.0.

The gilts in these herds were vaccinated twice prior to entering the breeding barn. The sows were vaccinated only at weaning. Therefore, the nursing pigs did not have a chance to be exposed to the vaccine.

Pigs were weaned at 8-10 days of age and moved to the off-site nursery. The nursery had two rooms with six pens. The rooms had separate manure handling and ventilation, and people showered and changed boots and coveralls between rooms.

There were pigs from up to three farms per nursery room. Pigs from vaccinated sow units were kept in one room and pigs from unvaccinated sow units in the other room. Pigs were blood tested on arrival at the nursery and re-tested at 30, 60 and 90 days of age. The whole trial was repeated three times. The nursery was cleaned and disinfected between trials.

There were five sow herds where the sows were vaccinated at weaning against PRRS. All of these herds were considered stable. It is interesting to note that although the sows were routinely vaccinated, up to 48 per cent of the sows still had less than 0.4. In five herds, sows were not vaccinated. Only three of these herds were stable.

Piglet PRRS levels

On average, 57 per cent of pigs from vaccinated herds had PRRS levels at weaning. By 30 days of age most pigs had lost the passive immunity and at 60 days all pigs tested negative. These pigs were still negative at 90 days of age.

Only 43 per cent of pigs from unvaccinated-vaccinated herds had levels at weaning. The percentage of positive pigs decreased to 26 per cent at 30 days of age. In the first two trials, PRRS spread within the pigs from the non-vaccinated herds.

By 60 days of age, the percentage of positive pigs increased to 35 per cent. Serum collected from the pigs was further tested to determine the source of the active PRRS infection (wild or vaccine virus) in this room of the nursery. Pigs from the two unstable herds carried a wild strain of the virus into the nursery.

Conclusions

We conclude from these trials that vaccinating sows at weaning will increase the stability of the sow herd. Piglets weaned at 8-10 days of age from a stable sow herd and moved to an off-site nursery that is managed all-in, all-out will be PRRS negative at 60 to 90 days of age.

This system can be applied to various aspects of the Ontario swine industry. Producers can use the definitions of sow herd stability to evaluate the status of their herds. Others may wish to adopt the vaccination and off-site early weaning protocol to produce PRRS-negative pigs for their own use.

Certainly, this management system has opened up opportunities for the export of Ontario genetics to countries requiring PRRS-negative pigs.

Thanks to participating producers and Donaldson Livestock International. The work was funded by Ontario Pork, Boehringer Ingelheim Canada Ltd. and OMAFRA. Ontario Pork funding was matched by CanAdapt.
Cate Dewey, with colleagues Andrijana Rajic, Anne Deckert and Bob Friendship, are with the Ontario Veterinary College, University of Guelph

© copyright 1999 Agricultural Publishing Company Limited.



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CQA seal of approval

The hot topic on swine farms this spring is Canadian Quality Assurance (CQA).

Federally inspected packing plants are asking that farms supplying pigs to their plants be CQA validated by the end of 1999. Producers are scrambling to attend information meetings, obtain producer manuals, and review procedures with vets and feed suppliers at the farm.

The manual's procedures must be implemented correctly at the farm for three months in order to achieve a successful audit by an approved validator. Producers are responsible for recertification every three years. Most swine veterinarians in the province are certified validators.

Why in the world do we need to do all this extra work to raise a pig today? Here are a few reasons:

* Canadian consumers, who want to be assured of the quality of the meat they are consuming. They are King and Queen; what they want is what must be supplied.

* Export markets that receive meat from other world suppliers that have farm-to-plate programs in place to assure quality to their buyers. They will get markets at Canada's expense if we don't follow suit.

* It makes good business sense at the farm.

Let's focus on the last statement. How can more paperwork make good business sense? I'll use as an example a phone call I got from my research farm a couple of nights ago.

My man said, "Ken, we have a pig with a sore leg. What do I inject it with? How much do I give it? Do I use the same stuff that is in the barn from the last group?"

Good questions. I had to think. What stuff did he have from the last time? Was it penicillin? If so, was it long acting, short acting, short withdrawal, long withdrawal? Was it supposed to be kept in the fridge?

Finally I decided to drive to the farm, inspect the pig, read the label, find out how it was stored and decide how much to inject. Two hours later, with two men, we finally had the 5cc of long-acting penicillin into the poor sore-legged pig.

This is an extreme example of why I should probably never try to raise pigs for a living economically, but it is also an example of how CQA could have worked by having written procedures in place that anyone could refer to for treatment plans.

By recording the treatment and withdrawal time, written record is provided to all involved up the food chain that the animals are drug-free before shipping. Keeping track of feed medication use, feed mixing and sequencing, mixer flushing and feed usage provides quality assurance as well as helping to monitor costs. The key to any quality assurance plan is to plan to do it, do it and provide proof you did it. This is referred to as due diligence.

What size farm can implement and manage CQA? There are only three or four basic papers that have to be maintained, along with normal good hygiene, facility maintenance and stockmanship, so I would suggest it's easier for small- to medium-sized farms to implement.

Food safety will continue to be a major issue. Some packing plants have Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) programs, while others are in the implementation process. HACCP is a more intense form of CQA, and will need to be implemented at all feed suppliers, elevators and any other place that supplies anything that is put into or onto the pig.

Yes, there are heavy upfront costs, but over time savings are realized by not having to fix mistakes and identifying efficiencies by reviewing every procedure used.

Kenpal has been working for more than two years to implement HACCP at our facility in Centralia. Our employees' efforts have resulted in Kenpal being the first feed facility in Canada to be certified HACCP recognized by the Canadian Feed Industry Association.

Since implementing HACCP, many critical control points have been identified and procedures put in place. I can assure producers looking at CQA that after the initial frustration there is a benefit to all involved.
Ken Palen is livestock specialist with Kenpal Farm Products, Centralia

© copyright 1999 Agricultural Publishing Company Limited.



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Helping your herds get over the hump

In recent months producers and practitioners from several Canadian provinces have contacted me about hump-backed pigs in finishing barns. "Hump-backed," "humpy-back" and "camel-back" are all terms used to describe a deformity that is seen sporadically in grower and grow/finish pigs. The condition is actually a combination of two different changes in the back of affected pigs. The medical names for the changes are lordosis and kyphosis. The conditions present themselves as:

* A marked "dip" in the back, just behind the shoulders (lordosis)

* A "hump" in the mid-back area (kyphosis) The exact cause of the conditions is not known, but we do know several things about them.

* Neither is inherited nor present at birth.

* Most afflicted animals are eight to 16 weeks old, but the condition can develop at any time between three weeks and 15 months of age.

* Growth rate is usually, but not always, affected.

* Occurrences are often in the fastest growing pigs.

* Males might be more frequently affected than females.

* Occurrence is sporadic, but may affect up to 4 per cent in a unit and thus become economically significant. In one severe outbreak, 30 per cent of all finishers were affected.

* Occurs in intensive, confinement-rearing units with little or no bedding.

* Slowing the rate of growth by reducing the level of feeding might reduce the effects of the condition and even help in recovery in very severe cases.

* Linked to management and environmental factors associated with intensively housed, rapidly growing, genetically improved pigs.

* Possibly associated with abnormal body posture following chronically painful conditions such as fighting, piling on, riding among males.

* Stress factors such as transportation over long distances, excessive confinement at weaning, severe cold and acute pneumonia might also be precipitating causes.

* In recent years, some herds with ongoing respiratory PRRS problems have reported increased numbers of these hump-backed pigs.

Although the marked hump back is the most immediately obvious change, careful observation can usually detect a range of deviations in the back that can be graded into five classes, with 85 to 90 per cent of affected pigs ultimately graded 1 and 2:

* Class 1: Slight tendency to both lordosis (dipped shoulder) and kyphosis

* Class 2: More obvious than 1, but still mild

* Class 3: Moderately affected

* Class 4: Severely affected

* Class 5: Paraplegic or so severely affected that humane destruction is advisable

X-ray examinations and post mortem findings usually reveal no significant abnormalities in the spine or muscles surrounding the spine. Dissection of the spinal column at necropsy reveals moderate to severe dipped shoulder (lordosis), which further emphasizes the upward lumbar deviation (hump back/kyphosis). An increase in joint spaces is sometimes seen on examination of the spine. The bottom of the joint space is wider than the top. This results in the visual appearance of the dipping and humping (kyphosis and lordosis) seen in the backs of the pigs. The clinical condition may actually be a postural response to rapid increase in weight of the dorsal spinal musculature or to adverse environmental conditions.

Hump-backed pigs pop up sporadically in a few barns. It appears, however, that we shall be seeing more of them in our genetically improved, fast-growing, lean pigs. Several contributing factors have been identified. Among them are environmental conditions such as extreme cold and inadequate ventilation; painful conditions that may result from certain diseases such as pneumonia and arthritis; or piling and riding among males. Any conditions that promote abnormal posture in fast-growing pigs may lead to development of this hump back condition.
S. Ernest Sanford, DVM, is with Boehringer Ingelheim Vetmedica (Canada)

© copyright 1999 Agricultural Publishing Company Limited.



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