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Hypor Invests in Feeding Stations in Canada,Increases Testing Capacity by 25 Percent

From Hypor News, www.hypor.com
 
Hypor is growing the number of pigs it tests by 25 percent with the addition of several Pig Performance feeding stations at its nucleus facility in Abernethy, Saskatchewan.
 
The feeding stations are expected to be installed by June 2016. Pigs from the Hypor nucleus facility in Ontario will be moved to the renovated Saskatchewan facility to increase the level of genetic value testing.
 
“By increasing our feeding stations we’ll be able to collect more phenotypes and make faster genetic improvements for the whole swine industry,” says Hypor Director of Research and Development Abe Huisman. The new Nedap Pig Performance Test stations are the first to be located in Canada.
 
The Nedap Pig Performance Test stations record the amount of feed intake and the weight of the animal each time the pig visits the feeder. “This is something new and exciting for the industry—traditionally pigs are weighed only five times between birth and the end of the testing period,” says Huisman.
 
Data from the feeding stations shows the difference in daily feed intake and the daily weight gain of individual pigs and will advance the ability Hypor has to select pigs that meet the North American market demand for high feed efficiency later in the growing period.
 
“Feed costs account for 60 to 70 percent of the total cost of production,” says Huisman. “If we can make pigs a little more efficient, we’ll be able to help producers be more profitable.”Hypor will use the data from the feeding stations to determine at what point a pig’s rate of daily gain slows down.
 
“We want to select the pigs that are lean and efficient at the end of the growing period as well at the beginning of the growing period to stay in-line with the markets,” says Huisman. North American slaughter weights have increased steadily over the past 20 years.
 
To meet this market demand for lean, quality pork in heavier pigs, Hypor uses a real-time ultrasound device, versus a computed tomography (CT) scanner, to measure the marbling and muscle-to-fat ratio.
 
“The ultrasound device allows us to collect more data than we would using a CT scanner which is limited to use on pigs that weigh less than 220 pounds,” says Hypor North America General Manager Luis Prieto. “The average live weight of market pigs is around 290 pounds.”
 
Source : Hypor

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