The Rural Voice, 2002-01, Page 26Secret formula
Liquid feeding enthusiasts say it can do
everything from cutting costs and increasing
weight gains to cleaning up the air in barns and
making pork taste better
Story by Keith Roulston
From nursery pigs (top) to market
hogs (bottom) to nursing and dry
sows, liquid feeding can have
advantages for all stages of
swine production, says John
Gadd (right), a British advocate
of computerized liquid feeding
systems. The added advantage
is that liquid feeding eases the
use of by-products and
fermented feed rations.
22 THE RURAL VOICE
Jn a case of "everything old is new
again" a high-tech version of an
old hog -feeding process is being
hailed as offering lower costs, higher
yields, a healthier barn environment,
even better -tasting pork.
At a November conference called
Opportunities of Liquid Feeding
Swine held in Stratford, John Gadd, a
British swine consultant called "one
of the 10 best known people in pigs
in the world" told 200 people that
pigs do better, there's less liquid
manure to handle and both animals
and handlers are healthier because
there's so much less dust in the air
when liquid feed is used.
Mixing feed with water or a food
by-product like whey from cheese
factories is nothing new, once being a
mainstay, on mixed farms when
cream was separated and skim milk
fed to pigs, but this is a totally high-
tech answer for larger farms using
computers and a pumping system. In
fact Martin Klunies of Grand Valley
Fortifiers, another speaker at the
conference, suggested the capital
costs of such a set-up require a
minimum hog inventory of 1500
hogs to justify the expense.
But many in Ontario have already
made the switch, following the lead
of European hog producers but far
out front of American farmers who
have so far shown little interest in
liquid feeding (through there were
American and Quebec producers at
the conference). Dr. Kees deLange
from the University of Guelph told
the conference that 115 Ontario
farms were using computerized wet -
feeding systems, producing 886,000
hogs a year — and the numbers are
growing rapidly.
Gadd, who first liquid -fed pigs
back in 1962, said there are six major
reasons farmers should be switching
to liquid feeding — first and
foremost being that pigs do better.
Based on 64 trials, the weight of
evidence is that liquid feeding
improved growth rate and feed
conversion efficiency, he said. Liquid
feeding also allows the use of lower-
cost byproducts such as whey or
cereal or distillers byproducts.
Gadd says studies show less food
is wasted in a liquid feeding system
with less feed going down the slats.
An added benefit not to be
discounted is the reduction of dust in