Grow Finish Nutrition And Facility

GROW FINISH NUTRITION AND FACILITY GOALS  Understand the various approaches to finishing pigs  Recognize that nutrition impacts health, growth, costs and profit opportunity  Understand the various approaches to finishing pigs  Recognize that facilities are managed to maximize health (includi...

GROW FINISH NUTRITION AND FACILITY GOALS  Understand the various approaches to finishing pigs  Recognize that nutrition impacts health, growth, costs and profit opportunity  Understand the various approaches to finishing pigs  Recognize that facilities are managed to maximize health (including growth), limit cost, and improve profit opportunity FINISHING  Grow – Finish  Feeder pig (35-75 lb) to market weight  16 weeks  Wean – Finish  10 to 15 pounds to market weight  24 weeks MEETING NUTRIENT REQUIREMENTS  Nutrient requirements of the pig decrease as weight increases  Changes in maintenance requirements  Changes in composition of growth (less lean and more fat – % lysine needed decreases)  Feed consumption increases  Nutrient composition of the diet can be decreased with increasing body weight  Barrows and gilts have different requirements GROWTH GROWTH AND DIFFERENT HOGS AMINO ACID REQUIREMENT Lysine is the first liming AA The amount of lysine to make 1 lb of body weight gain is virtually the same over the years FEEDING METRICS  Wean to finish or breed  Feed intake = 3-5% body weight  Water intake = 8 – 10% body weight  Eat to energy needs  Finishing feeder space = ~1.8 inches per pig  Typical feed conversion wean to market = 2.5  Feed intake  Weaning = 0.25 lbs/day  Market = 6.5 – 7 lbs/day PHASE FEEDING  Phase feeding: matching nutrient levels to the pig’s needs at each stage of growth  Multiple diet formulations during grow-finish  Often geared toward the middle or average pigs because weight variation exists within groups  Between 3 and 6 diets often used (or more)  Dependent on the understanding of pigs’ genotype, environment, feed costs, feed processing costs, target ending weight PHASE FEEDING ADVANTAGES OF PHASE FEEDING  Minimizes overfeeding (wasting nutrients)  Minimizes underfeeding (not meeting requirements – causing poor growth)  Reduces overall diet cost per pig  Reduces nutrient excretion  Biggest impact is from single to 2-phase program  Additional phases improve profitability and reduce nutrient excretion  Impact of each additional phase decreases with increasing number of phases  Number of diets is practical decision EVALUATING ECONOMICS Base price of ingredients is important Cheapest diet is not always best Evaluate cost/lb of gain Numerous opportunities to evaluate and adjust diets FEED BUDGETING  Change diets based on calculated FE rather than by visually estimating weight  If a pig should have a 2:1 FE from 20 to 50 lb (30 lb of gain), then it should need 60 lb of feed.  Multiply number of pigs to be fed by amount of feed and deliver that amount. (60 lb feed × 1,000 pigs = 30 tons)  When that feed allowance is used up, switch diets. FEED MANUFACTURING BY PHASE Pigs x Pounds for the phase/2000 for tons (if needed)  1000 pigs * 70 = 7000 lbs or 3.5 tons Depending on how big the bin is to store complete feed, you may need to make more than one batch of feed to complete the amount needed before moving to the next phase FOOD FOR THOUGHT In this example, the barn consumed 322 tons (644,000 lbs) of feed  If 60% of the diet is corn, that is 386,400 lbs of corn  56 lbs of corn in a bushel  So 386,000 / 56 = 6,900 bushel  If an acre of ground makes 180 bushel of corn, then you need 38.3 acres of corn to feed one barn of pigs.