FEED FOR THOUGHT ▶▶▶ Do we need to refocus our attention? T
his year has been a roller coaster for both humans and the swine industry. Some of us are still putting out fires and may even have new fires, while others are trying to stay busy. Personally, I have been trying to scale up my business in the midst of today’s
uncertainty. However, because I have been so focused on growing my company, I had lost focus on other things in my life. Thus, over the last couple of weeks I have had to refocus my attention on having a more bal- anced approach to work, family and physical and mental health. But I also think this applies to swine nutrition. In the USA we have fo- cused our attention on slowing down pigs to reduce the cost of produc- tion as much as possible, as we were losing $ 50+ a head. We focused on this immediate fire but may have set off a wildfire that is quickly growing out of control. I have had a few conversations lately revolving around not only sow lameness but now also lameness in finishing pigs. A great example of this was when I was working with Dr Jon Bergstrom from DSM on the upcoming agenda for the Midwest ASAS symposium: A sustainable approach to reducing antibiotics in swine production. He mentioned a recent article he had read on antibiotic resistance (Cheka- bab et al., 2020) and yes, there were some interesting results in regards to the topic addressed, but he was shocked by how many pigs were be- ing treated for limping or lameness in both “raised without antibiotics” (RWA) and non-RWA systems and that this was the number one reason for treatment in this meta-analysis. If we genuinely want to reduce antibiotic use in our production systems, do we need to refocus our attention on the real problems that producers are facing? Obviously, bone and ligament support are rarely researched. Many times, the necropsies of lame animals find no issues with the skel- eton or bone mineralisation. Thus, the questions we need to consider more often are the roles of pathogens, localised injuries and inflamma- tion, housing, animal handling, genetics, locomotion, ligament support, agility of the animal, etc. These are not things that can be answered in simple growth performance trials. A great example of this is when I ran my first broiler battery cage trial. The biggest bird sat in the corner where he could access feed on the left and water on the right, but he could not walk because he did not have to. And pigs get a bad rap? Yes, we need to refocus as producers, nutritionists and re- searchers. We need to consider nutritional strategies that tar- get growth and efficiency but also animal welfare. We need to re-evaluate our vitamin, mineral and other micronutrients re- quirements and stop reporting that because it did not hurt growth performance, we did not impact the pig in another area. Remember, wildfires start from small sparks and it’s time for us to do our due diligence to stop this trajectory of lameness and animal welfare concerns in our herds.
34 ▶PIG PROGRESS | Volume 36, No. 9, 2020
Casey Bradley For Casey Bradley, growing up on a mixed swine and crop farm in Southwest Michigan eventually led to a successful career in swine nutrition. She currently spends her days as president of the Sunswine Group.
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