The Rural Voice, 2004-04, Page 30Pigs lap up liquid feed from feeders along the wall on the right side of the photo in the barn of Pat and Kim Louwagie.
Experts say liquid feeding may give Ontario farmers the competitive edge they need over other countries.
Managing the competitive edge
Liquid feeding sgstems are the cutting edge for Ontario pork producers
looking for a leg -up over international competition but experts warn you
have to stag on top of nutritional issues
By Keith Roulston
Ishwar Saxena, plant manager of the
National Cheese Company plant in
Concord, Ontario. If cheddar cheese
or mozzarella are made, the result is
"sweet whey", a liquid with a pH
higher than 6.0. If cottage cheese or
cream cheese are made, the result is
"acid whey" with a pH below 4.6.
But as dairy companies have tried
to squeeze more profit out of their
operations, they've also discovered
the value of the constituents left in
the whey after the cheese has been
made. Lactose, for instance, is an
energy source and it is being
recovered . for sale to the
pharmaceutical industry. Protein is
the most valuable part of the whey
One
of 'the benefits of liquid
feeding systems for swine is
the ability to use by-products
from food processing, but all by-
products are not created equal.
In particular, producers attending
a Swine Liquid Association seminar
in Stratford, March 9, were told that
when they use whey from the cheese
making process, they could be
getting vastly different ingredients,
depending on what the processor
decides to do with the whey.
Even in its traditional form, whey
varies according to the breed of
animal it came from and the kind of
cheese that was made from the milk
that came into the plant, explained
26 THE RURAL VOICE
and is also sometimes extracted for
use in pharmaceuticals. The industry
could sell some of these protein
fractions for as much as $1,000 a
kilo, Saxena said. Minerals can also
be extracted and used to fortify milk.
Even the water, which makes up
by far the largest portion of the whey,
may vary as companies try to reduce
the cost of transportation of whey by
condensing it, even to the point of
producing whey powder.
So if a producer is buying whey,
he should ask for the details of the
makeup of the whey and then get his
nutritionist to advise on the proper
recipe for a proper diet for the pigs,
Saxena said.
Photo by John Bancroft