What’s new at EuroTier 2016?
Visitors of the upcoming EuroTier 2016, in Hanover, Germany, can admire for sure 251 agricultural novelties which will be presented. Some of the best ones for the pig industry are highlighted in this overview. Next to each innovation is the hall and booth number where you can learn more about it. EuroTier is held from 15 through to 18 November 2016.
The needle-free farrowing pen starts with eating iron
A lot of Danish piglet producers focus on not making unnecessary holes in piglets. The Danish company Scagro A/S, has a long tradition for developing eating iron and on this year’s EuroTier, Scagro presents 2 new products. Uni Pre-FER is a concept, based on automatic feeding from day 2 of the piglets, to achieve not only iron supply, but also growth in the farrowing pen. After the iron supply is done, the unique new UniFeeder continues to add starter feed. The concept has already shown interesting results under practical conditions.
A lot of producers wish to improve the haemoglobin level in general. Injecting the piglets a second time is challenging – and makes another unnecessary hole. Therefore, Scagro has introduced Combi-FER, which can be added on day 8th and 14th after birth, as a supplement to the traditional iron sources. The mantra for Combi-FER is – keep it simple, save extra work, no handling, low cost per piglet and think prevention – not injection.
Scagro A/S, Hall 22, stand 30A
Hygienic milk drinker
German housing & equipment company Big Dutchman presented a range of novelties – and was awarded a medal for its ‘CulinaFlex’. The company recently announced it is marketing and further developing the ‘CulinaCupLine’, an automatic milk drinking system from German animal nutrition company Bröring. Big Dutchman upgraded the hygiene of the system by eliminating impurities and fresh air from the feed drop pipes, thus removing two of the main causes for pathogen formation. In essence, this is achieved as the central part of the system is a ‘pinch valve’, installed in the drop pipe. The valve functions like a balloon, squeezing all remaining feed from the pipe when emptied. The valve also has positive effects on labour efficiency because the pipes no longer require any cleaning. This saves about 1.5 hours of work per week.
Big Dutchman presents a range of other innovations at EuroTier, including the WaveFeeder, a foraging cushion that is applied inside the trough to encourage rooting behaviour of the pigs. It leads to calmer pigs and better weight gain. 17B27
Finishing in open air
German politics have been increasingly demanding that more attention be paid to animal welfare, and in doing so, various companies moved into the design of high animal welfare concepts. Austrian-based livestock equipment company Schauer is therefore showcasing its ‘NatureLine’ concept at EuroTier, which includes solutions for group housing for sows, for weaners and for finishers, having straw and outdoor patios. The finishing house is built up like the concept of PigPorts (read more on page 28 of Pig Progress 32.8), with 1.2 m2 available per finisher pig, and with separated areas available for dunging (outdoors), sleeping and eating. 15C29
Also new on the market is the ‘H+L Auslaufstall’, a finisher house by German housing & equipment company Hölscher + Leuschner. Here the straw area for finishers is to be found in the outdoor zones, which can be easily accessed by a tractor. The system also comes with optional floor feeding and also offers sophisticated mechanical climatised zones and controllable gates in case the pigs need to stay indoors. 16E19
Sow weighing
“You know so much about the sows, but you can’t exactly tell the sows’ weights yet?” That question was asked a few times to many representatives of Nedap Livestock Management from the Netherlands.
Hence, they endeavoured to develop ‘Nedap Weight Monitoring’, an addition to its overall sow management concept, which can be integrated with its Electronic Sow Feeding and Sow Separation equipment. The weight provides real-time data with which it is possible to adjust feeding diets. 17F11
Zinc product
German animal nutrition company Miavit presents a zinc product, called ‘MiaTrace Zn’. It is a zinc source which has been technologically refined in such a way that the maximum amount of free zinc ions is present in the intestines.
In doing so, the product behaves differently than various other zinc sources, that usually react quickly with other feed components in the digestive tract, causing them to be scarcely available. The product was developed together with Prof Zentek of Free University Berlin. 22A29
Preventing dysbiosis
Dysbiosis in swine is described as a situation when there is a suboptimal balance in the pig’s gut – as opposed to ‘eubiosis’ when everything is fine. As Dr Heinrich Kleine Klausing, managing director at EW Nutrition describes: “It is a situation when some pigs have diarrhoea but when it is tested, no real pathogen can be found that may have caused it.”
To assist the pig gut a little – and to do so without the usage of antibiotics – EW Nutrition introduced Activo NoDys. This is a mixture of various ingredients that can help stabilise the balance in a pig’s gut. Ingredients included is a micro-encapsulated mixture of plant extracts, e.g. carvacrol and cinnamon; prebiotics; tannin agents; and medium-chain fatty acids and their monoglycerides. 22C12
Iron for piglets
Often, additional iron is given to piglets using one injection after birth. But does that actually meet the young piglets’ requirements? Dutch equipment company MS Schippers, focusing on methods to reduce reliance on antibiotics, comes up with a concept to provide iron only orally and on a more permanent basis. MS Biza Nature comes with an oral iron pasta called MS FerroPaste, which can be supplied to the pigs using a dispenser (the MS FerroPaste Dispenser).
This could e.g. be complemented by offering a special natural peat product (MS FerroFeed) to the piglets as from roughly day 10 post-farrowing. This encourages natural rooting behaviour. The list of advantages named by the company is long, e.g. less diarrhoea, higher haemoglobin levels and less mortality. 16D10
Fermentation for farmers
More fermentation news as Dutch-based animal feed producer ForFarmers and German-based equipment company Weda teamed up to develop ExtraFerm, an overall concept to encourage on-farm fermentation for liquid feeding for pigs.
The mechanical part of the concept is delivered by Weda, with the development of FermCube, a mobile and compact fermentation unit in a container. Of course other varieties are also possible, but for the mobile version it was chosen to illustrate that it is possible to add a fermentation unit to any farm. 17D05
The nutrition part is for ForFarmers, delivering the liquid culture (Ferm4Farm) to be able to start quickly and reliably with fermentation. Without a doubt, the key word to make this a success on-farm is strictness, explains Henning Giede-Jeppe, product manager swine at ForFarmers. He says it is essential to repeat the fermentation process every time under exactly identical circumstances and maintain top hygiene. 20E07
In order to oversee the fermentation process step by step, the concept comes with a computer programme.
Highly digestible milk replacer
French animal nutrition company MixScience, part of the Avril Group, introduces its milk replacer Startylac at EuroTier. The company chose for an upmarket approach to make the milk replacer having a composition which is 70% identical to sow milk.
The fat is protected against oxidation thanks to micro-encapsulation and it consists of highly digestible fat with a higher quantity of MCFAs. In addition, the composition consists of 30% of a blend of specific feed additives. 20C09
Keeping pathogenic bacteria out
For years, Denmark has been known as being one of the countries with the tightest antibiotics legislation. It is no wonder, that Danish-based European Protein aims high at this EuroTier by launching its ‘Antibiotic-Free Concept’.
Key elements in the dietary concept form the use of dry fermented rapeseed in combination with seaweed. This combination of these protein sources create an environment in which both gram+ bacteria as well as gram- bacteria are not keen to grow, explains owner Jens Legarth. 20K18
Taking away the sows
How to reduce weaning stress for piglets? A concept that answers this question is German-based livestock equipment company Hölscher + Leuschner’s SowTakeAway. The company developed a farrowing crate that can function as a grower pen after the sow is moved away.
The pen is built up according to the free farrowing philosophy and makes grower housing redundant. In a press release, the company explains that at weaning, four stressors come together for pigs: their mother is gone, a new environment, new pen mates and unknown feed. The concept aims to reduce the stressors to only one. The concept comes with a liquid feeding trough for the sow which also can be accessed by piglets. This way piglets can access it together with the sows, making them familiar with their feed at weaning. 16E19
How much does my pig weigh?
Finisher pig weighing becomes very simple with just a tablet or smartphone app. German livestock & equipment company Meier-Brakenberg developed their so-called ‘Piggy Check’ application which can be used in combination with a 3D-camera. The camera generates a depth image and calculates the animal’s weight. A traffic light indicator shows recommended marketing actions. The app is linked to a portal, which collects data in a cloud, evaluates them and amalgamates logged weight data with slaughterhouse data.
This entails valuable insights into coming sortings and improvement of slaughter prices. The app comes with minimum costs and a monthly subscription.
The company also presents an upgrade of its award-winning cadaver-removing pick-up device ‘Porky’s PickUp’ and a multipurpose cleaning wagon. 17D13
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