General enquiries on this form should be made to:



|General enquiries on this form should be made to: |

|Defra, Science Directorate, Management Support and Finance Team, |

|Telephone No. 020 7238 1612 |

|E-mail: petitions@defra..uk |

|SID 5 |Research Project Final Report |

• λ Note

In line with the Freedom of Information Act 2000, Defra aims to place the results of its completed research projects in the public domain wherever possible. The SID 5 (Research Project Final Report) is designed to capture the information on the results and outputs of Defra-funded research in a format that is easily publishable through the Defra website. A SID 5 must be completed for all projects.

A SID 5A form must be completed where a project is paid on a monthly basis or against quarterly invoices. No SID 5A is required where payments are made at milestone points. When a SID 5A is required, no SID 5 form will be accepted without the accompanying SID 5A.

• This form is in Word format and the boxes may be expanded or reduced, as appropriate.

λ ACCESS TO INFORMATION

The information collected on this form will be stored electronically and may be sent to any part of Defra, or to individual researchers or organisations outside Defra for the purposes of reviewing the project. Defra may also disclose the information to any outside organisation acting as an agent authorised by Defra to process final research reports on its behalf. Defra intends to publish this form on its website, unless there are strong reasons not to, which fully comply with exemptions under the Environmental Information Regulations or the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

Defra may be required to release information, including personal data and commercial information, on request under the Environmental Information Regulations or the Freedom of Information Act 2000. However, Defra will not permit any unwarranted breach of confidentiality or act in contravention of its obligations under the Data Protection Act 1998. Defra or its appointed agents may use the name, address or other details on your form to contact you in connection with occasional customer research aimed at improving the processes through which Defra works with its contractors.

| |Project identification |

|1. Defra Project code |LS 3601 |

2. Project title

|Finishing Pigs - Systems Research |

|3. Contractor |Meat and Livestock Commission |

|organisation(s) |PO Box 44, Winterhill house |

| |Snowdon Drive, Milton Keynes |

| |MK6 1AX |

| |      |

| |      |

| |54. Total Defra project costs |£ 1744842 |

| |5. Project: start date |01 September 2000 |

| | end date |31 August 2005 |

6. It is Defra’s intention to publish this form.

Please confirm your agreement to do so. YES NO

(a) When preparing SID 5s contractors should bear in mind that Defra intends that they be made public. They should be written in a clear and concise manner and represent a full account of the research project which someone not closely associated with the project can follow.

Defra recognises that in a small minority of cases there may be information, such as intellectual property or commercially confidential data, used in or generated by the research project, which should not be disclosed. In these cases, such information should be detailed in a separate annex (not to be published) so that the SID 5 can be placed in the public domain. Where it is impossible to complete the Final Report without including references to any sensitive or confidential data, the information should be included and section (b) completed. NB: only in exceptional circumstances will Defra expect contractors to give a "No" answer.

In all cases, reasons for withholding information must be fully in line with exemptions under the Environmental Information Regulations or the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

(b) If you have answered NO, please explain why the Final report should not be released into public domain

| |

| |Executive Summary |

7. The executive summary must not exceed 2 sides in total of A4 and should be understandable to the intelligent non-scientist. It should cover the main objectives, methods and findings of the research, together with any other significant events and options for new work.

|BACKGROUND |

| |

|The Finishing Pigs Systems Research Project was a major multidisciplinary initiative co-ordinated by the MLC. It brought together scientists |

|and specialists to work on areas of strategic importance to the industry and to future policy. The project covered research objectives under |

|cost of production, environment, food safety, pig health and welfare and meat quality. |

| |

|A central objective was to explore the potential of liquid feeding technology to improve competitiveness and address food safety issues |

|relating to salmonella. The work established that liquid feeding holds the potential to reduce cost of production by a net of around 13.5p/kg |

|dead weight and is an effective management tool for controlling the presence of salmonella in pigs at slaughter. |

| |

|The project was based around four large-scale production studies at MLC’s Stotfold Pig Development Unit. These were carried out consecutively |

|over a three-year period, from April 2002 to February 2005, with each study based on two feeding treatments evaluated within two contrasting |

|systems of housing (fully-slatted and straw-based). Field evaluations in the production studies were underpinned by detailed laboratory |

|investigations of liquid feeding for the development of standard operating procedures. |

| |

|Project results will benefit the competitive position of the British pig industry and will provide sound information to policy makers so that |

|appropriate balance can be achieved between the requirements for production, welfare, food safety and the environment towards sustainable |

|development. |

| |

|PRODUCTION STUDIES |

| |

|Feeding treatments |

|Study 1: Dry vs. liquid feeding. Dry pelleted diets were compared with diets fed in liquid form. All diets contained a common background of raw|

|ingredients and were formulated to the same nutrient specification. Study 2: Single diet vs. phase feeding. Two liquid diets were formulated to|

|meet the energy and ideal protein requirements of pigs at the extremes of the weight range (30kg to 110kg live weight). Under phase-feeding |

|the proportionality of the diets delivered at the troughs using a computer controlled system was adjusted daily to match protein and energy |

|requirements according to growth curves. The proportionality of the two diets was fixed for single diet feeding from entry to slaughter. Study |

|3: Fermented cereals. The cereal fraction of a liquid diet was pre-fermented using a registered strain of Pediococcus acidilactici (Bactocell) |

|under controlled temperature (35oC) and time (24-hour). This was compared by feeding the same diet in liquid form but without pre-fermentation |

|of the cereal fraction. Study 4: Low protein liquid feeding. A control liquid diet was formulated without synthetic amino acids to meet the |

|ideal protein requirements of growing/finishing pigs. This resulted in a crude protein content of 233g/kg dry matter (DM). Crude protein was |

|reduced in the low protein diet to 175g/kg DM by the use of synthetic amino acids (lysine, methionine, threonine and tryptophan) whilst |

|supplying an equivalent level of standardised ileal digestible ideal protein. |

| |

|Housing |

|The housing systems were purpose built on a single site in an effort to minimise potentially confounding farm effects, and the timing of the |

|studies were representative of the different seasons of the year. The buildings had identical shells and each consisted of four rooms |

|containing four pens. The straw based pens measured 5.8m x 3.7m, including the scrape-through passage, which was cleaned out daily. Solid |

|concrete was used for both the lying and the scraped dunging areas. After cleaning out, around 0.4kg of straw per pig per day was added to the|

|pens. Fully slatted pens measured 5.5m x 3.7m and had flooring of concrete slats with 83mm width and 18mm gap. A one-metre wide central |

|walkway ran throughout all four rooms in each building. The ventilation and environment in both housing systems was automatically controlled to|

|set maximum and minimum ventilation, relative humidity and temperature against occupancy day. Each room had two windows, allowing natural |

|daylight, and artificial light was mainly used during husbandry tasks, weighing and behaviour observations. |

| |

|Pigs |

|In each study, 1024 pigs ((Large White x Landrace) x Large White) were received in 8 equal batches of 128 over a period of 14 ± 4 weeks. In |

|Study 4, two additional batches were evaluated for growth performance. Batches were allocated alternately between the housing systems until all|

|rooms were full. After a period of 4 to 5 days acclimatisation to the housing, each pig was ear tagged for individual identification and |

|weighed. The batch was divided into four equal groups of 32 pigs in order of weight, and then each group was randomly allocated to one of four|

|pens within a single room. The mean live weight of animals at entry was 34.3 ± 0.65kg. Numbers per pen were reduced at week six (mid-point) |

|to 25 in the fully slatted system and 20 in the straw based system, in accordance with normal commercial stocking densities for these housing |

|types. Pigs were fed ad libitum and water was available ad libitum from four nipple drinkers in each pen. Pigs were slaughtered at around |

|104kg live weight. Feeding treatments were applied at the room level for the determination of environmental impact and to reduce microbial |

|contamination, with the pen as the experimental unit for statistical analysis of variance (ANOVA). |

| |

|KEY RESULTS |

| |

|Production and competitiveness |

|Study 1: Liquid feeding improved daily gain (796 vs. 754g/day; P ................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download