GB2107566A - A method of raising pigs - Google Patents

Abstract

Expanded perlite or vermiculite or mixtures thereof in a particle size up to 6 mm is admixed with the nutrient components of a fodder composition in an amount of 10 to 40% by volume thereof to form a dry or moist crumbly composition, the mixture being made continuously available to pigs in feed troughs while water is available only upon demand through self-actuated waterers in the vicinities of the feed troughs. The result is a higher quality meat.

Description

SPECIFICATION A method of raising pigs This invention relates to a method of raising pigs and, more particularly to a method of feeding pigs to as to improve the quality of meat obtained from pigs raised for meat producing purposes.

U. S. Patent Specification No. 4310522 describes a feed composition and a method of feeding pigs intended not only to improve the meat quality of the pigs raised on the composition but also to improve the quality of the manure or dung produced as waste in pig husbandry.

More particularly, the aforementioned U. S.

Patent Specification describes and ad libitum fodder or hog-feed composition containing an indigestible extender which at the same time, is capable of improving the quality of animal droppings and the quality of the meat obtained from the swine. More particularly, the composition can make use of any swine or hog feed composition or fodder containing, in addition to the usual digestable swine-fodder components, such as grain and soy meal or bran meal, vitamins, other nutrients such as essential elements and trace elements and nutrient salts, a porous granular additive consisting of blown or expanded perlite with a particle size up to 5 mm and preferably up to 2 mm. The composition described in the aforementioned specification contained 10 to 1 5 vol. -% of blown perlite particles mixed with the digestible component.

The present invention in part exploits the earlier discoveries as described in this application and extends these developments further with the intention of improving the raising of hogs and pigs.

In general, the raising of hogs and pigs has utilized so-called restrictive or rationed feeding in which the feed, containing protein and energy carriers, nutrient salts and the like, was placed in feed troughs and metered to the individual hogs with drinking water being supplied through water troughs.

Since these techniques required the supply of relatively precisely determined quantities of the feed, the latter was delivered by hand or by mechanical conveyors and metering devices. In such systems the incorporation of inert components was also possible.

The inert component, as with the balance of the feed, was supplied in portions and metered daily to each hog. The drinking water was supplied in troughs or delivered on demand, generally through devices which could be actuated as required by mouth orsnout of each hog.

It was necessary to carefully control the proportions of protein and other nutrients and, during the raising of hogs, to modify the composition in accordance with the age of the animal. This was the case, for example, when it was desired to reproducibly raise porkers which could be marketed at a weight of 1 8 to 20 kg. Of course over the raising period the feed composition is modified to allow for bone and organ development, muscle and flesh development, fat layering and the like so that the requisite high quality meat is produced.

Although a marbleization with fat is desired in the meat, excess fat development must be prevented and it has long been recognized that excess fat can be prevented by holding the metering of the feed to a level below that which the animal can absorb and by carefully controlling the feed supply.

As indicated, control of the feed metered to the animals could be done by hand or through expensive metering and feed devices for branching the portions to the various animals, weighing out or measuring the portions by volume or in other complex ways, generally with two or three portions being supplied each day.

Such hog raising systems have been found to be labour intensive and hence costly, and even to create so-called hunger stresses in animals could lead to circulatory and heart disfunctions, detrimental effects on the meat quality and the like.

Efforts to counter these problems by adding inert ingredients such as sand or closed-pore foamed synthetic granules to the feed and to allow the animals to eat to satisfaction or saturation, have also been proved to be problematical. With synthetic granules there was a tendency for toxic or noxious chemicals from the granules to find their way into the meat, especially when the granules containe residues of reaction products, foaming agents and the like. Sand is notsufficiently filling and does not mix well with the animal wastes and can interfere with apparatus for handling and processing such wastes when the sand, for example, settles thereform.Furthermore, earlier inert additives tend to interfere with the reproducibility of the quality of meat prodution, i.e. cannot be used with the assurance that large numbers of animals, raised on compositions containing them, will have uniformly high meat quality.

It is the principal object of the present invention to provide an improved method of raising pigs wereby the disadvantages of earlier systems can be avoided.

Another object of the invention is to provide a meat production method from which it is possible to obtain meat from pigs of uniformly high quality in highly reproducible manner.

Still another object of the invention is to provide improved feed compositions.

According to the present invention, there is provided a method of raising pigs for use as meat animals wherein the pigs are fed a feed mixture containing protein and energy carriers, nutrient salts as well as an inert compo nent, and which comprises introducing 10 to 40% by volume of the feed mixture of expanded perlite or vermiculite with a particle size up to 6 mm into the mixture feeding the resulting mixture to the pigs ad libitum by supplying the mixture to feed troughs of the pigs in a dry or moist crumbly form, and making drinking water available to the pigs from self-actuated waterers in the vicinity of the feed troughs.

The invention is based upon the surprising discovery that under certain conditions it is possible not only to markedly improve the handling of pig wastes and increase the meat quality of pigs fed with a mixture containing the very special inert components of the instant invention, but that the raising of pigs can be made highly reproducable in terms of the quality of the meat which results when the aforedescribed steps are followed, i.e. the expanded perlite and vermiculite are introduced into the mixture, the prescribed quantities of the mixture are fed ad libitum and water is made available on demand from mouth or snout actuated waterers.

The lower limited of the particles size will be 0.1 mm (see the aforementioned U. S.

Patent Specification which also describes the technique for fabricating expanded or blown perlite; the same method can be used for producing the expanded vermiculite).

It has been found, moreover, that "fattening" of hogs just prior to slaughter and feeding or breeding sows is best effected when the blown perlite or vermiculite is added to the feed in an amount of 1 5 to 27 vol.-% thereof, this proportion being raised to 25 to 50 vol.-% for non-suckling sows.

Control of the supply of water is essential to the present invention. This means that the water cannot be freely flowing in watering troughs. In practise, each food trough will be disposed proximal to the waterer or fountaintype water feeder provided with a valve operable by the mouth of the hog so that the hog will be able to drink as much water as it wishes but only by operating the actuator.

Of course, it is not always possible to prevent the water from overlapping from the mouths of the animals. In practice this has not found to be a problem if the waterer is disposed above or sufficiently close to the feed trough as to allow the overflowing water to moisten the feed mixture in the latter trough. Hence, the waterer is preferably disposed above the feed trough.

Under the conditions specified above, the animal tends to fill its mouth with the feed mixture and then, practically with the mouth full, drink water from the self-actuated waterer. The ingestion is thus similar to that which obtains with the food supplied in discrete portions to the animal and the feed trough can be continuously filled and the animals can select the eating times.

The most surprising point, of course, is that notwithstanding the continuous availability of the feed, the actual ingestion of the feed is analogous to that which obtains in restrictive feeding because each animal only ingests the physically required amount for selfsatisfaction.

It appears that the very specific inert component of the invention prevents overeating by the animals.

With the system of this invention, therefore, there is a significant reduction of food ingested per unit of weight gain and the food conversion is substantially improved with the present invention.

With the system of the invention both access to the feed and to the drinking water are thus free in the sense that each individual animal can partake of the feed and the drinking water autogenously since a portion of the feed remains in the trough until consumed and the water supply is tapped by each animal itself.

The method of the invention is carried out differently if the feeding cycle is broken into two or three distinct stages over the life of the animals.

The three-stage feeding can be subdivided into a starter period, an intermediate period and a terminal period, the last resulting in slaughter of the animals in the raising of porkers. During the initial period, the starter feed composition should contain about 15% by volume of the expanded perlite or vermiculite while the intermediate period can utilize a feed of 21% by volume expanded perlite or vermiculite whereas the terminal period can utilize a feed containing 27% by volume of this mineral matter.

In the case of a two-stage feeding cycle, the starter feed can contain 15% by volume of expanded perlite or vermiculite whereas the terminal feeding can be done with 25% by volume of expanded perlite or vermiculite admixed with the usual pig-feeding nutrients.

As a result, not only is it possible to obtain animals whose flesh, upon slaughter, is of an unusually high quality but it has also been discovered that the entire feeding process is highly economical with respect to conversion of the digestible ingredients in the feed. It appears that the result derives from the fact that the animals drink independently of the eating process so that the food is never soaked or spoiled by excessive contact with water.

When the feed mixture is compounded without the addition of water, all of the water ingested by the animal is from is self-actuated waterer so that only drops of water can moisten the food below the waterer.

As noted, it is not necessary to break up the daily ration into portions for each animal.

Rather the restrictive feed:ng is effected automatically by the addition of the blown perlite or vermiculite. Best results in this respect are obtained when the particle size distribution of the blow perlite and vermiculite which is used is such that less than 50% by volume and less than 30% by volume is in a particle size range below 1 mm.

It has also been found to be advantageous to utilize blown perlite or vermiculite whose bulk density is in the range of 50 to 1 20 kg.

per m3, preferably 70 to 90 kg. per m3.

It has also been found to be advantageous in some cases to supply the water requirements of the animals in part by saturating the pores of the granules of the blown perlite or vermiculite with water. This of course reduces the desire of the animal to operate the selfactuated waterers and thereby limits the tendency for drops or streams of water to enter the feed trough. Even with saturation of the pores of the blown perlite or vermiculite with water, it is found that, under the conditions specified above, the feed mixture remains sutstantially dry or moist and crumbly.

When feeding animals destined for slaughter, the waterers are disposed above the feed troughs in the manner previously described.

However, for feeding brood sows, it has been found to be advantageous to provide the waterers in the region of the feed troughs but spaced laterally therefrom, for example, behind the animals.

Best results are obtained with a blown perlite or blown vermiculite component which consists of about 30% by volume of a particle size below 1 mm and about 70% by volume from 1 to 3 mm.

While the reasons for the unusual results obtained are not completely clear, it appears that the blown perlite or vermiculite, utilized as described above, is a voluminous filler which during the mixing with the meal and other nutrient components of the feed has its fine pores filled with fine particles of meal and which gradually can be leached during the digestion process from the filler so that the actual nutrients are supplied gradually following initial ingestion. The result is an autogenous rationing of the feed by each animal itself.

The blown perlite or vermiculite is an additive which does not release chemicals taken up by the animal and of a toxic or noxious nature. Rather the perlite or vermiculite appears to contain valuable trace elements which add their supplements in the nutrition requirements for the animals.

The feeding process is also improved by the fact that the animals retain the feed in the mouth for longer periods and indeed practically continuously can have their mouths full without overeating and yet obtain maximum conversion of feed to meat. The composition assists the digestive process and, as described in the aforementioned pending application, results in animal wastes which are easier to handle and have improved fertilizer qualities.

Useful microflora which is carried in the wastes is increased and detrimental components are for the most part absence or reduced.

Claims (12)

1. A method of raising pigs for use as meat animals wherein the pigs are fed a feed mixture containing protein and energy carriers and nutrient salts as well as an inert component, and which comprises introducing 10 to 40% by volume of the feed mixture of expanded perlite or vermiculite with a particle size up to 6 mm into the mixture, feeding the resulting mixture to the pigs ad libitum by supplying the mixture to feed troughs of the pigs in dry or moist-crumbly form, and making drinking water available to the pigs from self-actuated waterers in the vicinities of the feed troughs.

2. A method as in Claim 1, wherein the self-actuated waterers are operated by the mouths of the pigs individually to feed water directly to the mouths of the pigs.

3. A method as in Claim 1 or Claim 2, wherein the pigs are fed in a three-stage feeding cycle, including a starting, intermediate and a terminal stage, the feed mixture in the starting stage having about 15% by volume, the feed mixture in the intermediate stage having about 21% by volume and the feed mixture in the terminal stage having about 27% by volume, respectively, of expanded vermiculite or perlite mixed with the nutrients of said feed mixtures.

4. A method as in Claim 1 or Claim 2, wherein the pigs are fed in a two-stage feeding cycle including a starting stage and terminal stage, the feed mixture in the starting stage having about 15% by volume and the feed mixture in the terminal stage having about 25% by volume, respectively, of expanded perlite or vermiculite with the nutrient components of the mixture.

5. A method as in any of the preceding Claims, wherein the blown perlite or vermiculite has a particle size range less than 50% by volume below about 1 mm.

6. A method as in any one of the preceding Claims, wherein the blown perlite or vermiculite has a bulk density of 50 to 1 20 kg/m3.

7. A method as in any one of the preceding Claims, wherein the waterers are positioned above the feed troughs to permit moistening of the feed mixture in the troughs by small amounts of water from the waterers.

8. A method as in any one of Claims 1 to 6, wherein the particles of blown perlite or vermiculite have pores saturated with water.

9. A method as in any of Claims 1 to 6 and 8, wherein for brood sows the waterers are positioned in lateral spaced relation to the feed troughs.

1 0. A blown perlite or vermiculite compo sition adapted to be added to a pig feed mixture for feeding pigs in accordance with the method of Claim 1 which has a particle size distribution with about 30% by volume below 1 mm and about 70% by volume from 1 to 3 mm in particle size and a bulk density of 70 to 90 kg/m3.

11. Methods of raising pigs in accordance with Claim 1 and substantially as hereinbefore described.

12. Feed mixtures for use in raising pigs by the method of Claim 1 and substantially as hereinbefore described.