face increased legislation. Farmers have to be able to show they know when the treatment was performed, on what date and at what time. They have to know which animal was in- jected with which treatment and at what dose. They also need to know where the treatment was carried out and who administered it. “We see that there is clearly a need to measure and track and trace, and report and analyse medical treatments, and to make this information available for all internal and external stakeholders in a very simple and very safe way,” said Mr Riess. The Henke-Sass, Wolf solution to all of these questions is V-Etic, a solution for recording injection information quickly and accurately. The solution works with low-frequency RFID ear tags. It allows farmers to collect, store, share and utilise injection information wherever, whenever. Lightweight and battery powered, the device is connected via Bluetooth, has ten hours of working time and stores up to 130,000 records.
Mycotoxin prediction tools One of the big risks pig farmers face today is the risk of myco- toxocosis from contaminated feed. In livestock production, pigs are the most sensitive animals to mycotoxin contamina- tion. Olga Averkieva, business development manager at Nutriad, Belgium, explained the risk, offered insight into the available prediction tools, and informed visitors about Myco- Man, a smartphone application that helps producers manage the negative effects of moulds and mycotoxins. The problem with mycotoxins, said Ms Averkieva, is that most acute cases cannot be detected, except in the case of zearale- none. The biggest mycotoxin-related losses come from
subclinical cases. Early detection tools and preventative mea- sures can help lower that risk, though, she said. Contributing factors to mycotoxin formation in the field are e.g. delayed harvest, drought stress and rains during crop growth. Early mycotoxin detection tools include mycotoxin prediction models like weather outlooks and mycotoxin surveys in harvested grain. The problem with pre-harvest models is that they only pro- vide 30-50% certainty, said Ms Averkieva. Screening grains during harvest should support pre-harvest models. Ms Averkieva pointed to two rapid tests for mycotoxin detec- tion – one from Charm Sciences, detecting six mycotoxins; the other, a rapid test from R-Biopharm and according to her the most suitable for farmers. Since mycotoxins are not equally distributed in grain, the best procedure is to take several samples from varying locations. “A larger sample increases the chances of finding mycotoxins, especially in a large quantity of material,” said Ms Averkieva. Perhaps more important than collecting sample data is knowing what to do with that collected information after- wards and she provided an interesting example to elucidate this. Ms Averkieva then urged the importance of questioning the sampling conclusions. To aid in the evaluation and inter- pretation of results, her company Nutriad offers a smart- phone application called MycoMan. The app helps farmers to assess risk and offers a recommended dose of a mycotoxin deactivator or binder. The installation of the app is free.
Interested to know more about the talks? At www.pigprogress. net the presentations of all speakers can be accessed for free.
▶ PIG PROGRESS | Volume 34, No. 6, 2018 17
In the spotlight: Steven Mitchell of Greengage demonstrates lighting technol- ogy during Pig Progress’ Future Pigs seminar.
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36
