Scientific research shows that pig feed troughs where drinking and eating are clearly separated, rather than giving a so-called frying bin, a much more favourable feed conversion. In addition, a good and accurate adjustment but also existing anti-morsal edges in the feed bowl for pigs are of great importance. Almost all of our pigs feed boxes for piglets and meat pigs have anti-morsal edges. Unfortunately, in practice, we still see a lot of feeding troughs for pigs that do not have any anti-morsal edges when this is very common. Please pay attention to this when you buy a pig feed box or that feed box has a spill edge and how that anti-mors edge is constructed.
Excellent article in specialist magazine pigs about importance feed troughs
In November 2023, John Lamers of trade magazine Pigs is an excellent article written following a meeting at the Pigs Academy where researcher Sander Palmans of the Belgian Agricultural Test and Training Centre told his story. You can find this article here read, we recommend you to take a good look at this article on pig food. The research shows that investing in a new but certainly good pig feed bowl can save a lot of money and that within 1 year you will earn a good pig feed tray with ease.
Little bit of food loss per day pig farmer quickly costs a lot of money
Source: John Lamers Vakblad Pigs
50 grams of feed spill per pig per day is common on pig farms. And it could certainly be more, researcher Sander Palmans knows from measurements. It doesn't seem much, but it simply means a bulk truck full of food every year in the well.
Researcher Palmans of the Agricultural Tasting and Formation Centre gave tips on 24 November during the meeting of PigsAcademy in Rumbeke, Belgium.
Back to the 50 grams per day. That's 17 kilos per pig per year with 340 days of occupation. At two thousand places, that's 34,000 kilos of food in the well. Palmans: This costs you twice: for the purchase of the feed and for the extra manure drainage.
In Palmans' eyes, tackling feed spills is not so difficult, by looking through the stable in the daily round. In a bowl, a little food may be present, but no more than that. If there is a low feed at the bottom of the container, then it is certain that there will be a big spill.
Prefer fresh feed
A dense plate around the feed bowl makes no sense with regard to feed spills. "Farkenholders often assume that the food that pertains to this is still eaten," Palmans says. That's not right. There is always some manure or urine in this food and then the pigs leave it. They can also choose the fresh food in the bowl. What would you do yourself?
To prevent spilling, a good adjustment of the bucket is important. A study compared slit widths at the bottom of the feed tray of 9, 14 and 24 millimetres. With 3 millimeter pellet feed in the bin.
The 9-millimeter gap seems too small. The pigs must then make too much effort to get to the feed. They then no longer meet the last bit of their need and start braking, Palmans explains. In the test the growth decreased from 852 to 807 grams per day. Feed conversion did improve from 2.38 to 2.44, but that's not significant.
Higher feed conversion
With the large crevice growth was slightly lower, with 839 grams against 852 grams, while the pigs consumed 30 grams more feed over the whole period. The feed conversion was 2.46 at the wide crevice at the bottom of the bowl, compared to 2.38 at the normal crevice width. At 250 euros per tonne of feed this costs the pig farmer 1.80 euros per pig delivered.
In weaned piglets, the same study was conducted with slit widths of 14, 19 and 33 mm. Between 14 and 19 millimetres of slit width there was no difference in growth and feed conversion. This was the case with the wide crevice. Feed conversion increased from 1.46 to 1.55. This difference of 9 points costs at 350 euros per tonne of feed 49 euro cents per pig.
Adjust feed tray properly
Thus, feed injection is definitely limited by a well-adjusted feed tray. Adjust the feeding tray in piglets widely in the first few days to teach them to eat. The piglets have plenty of time to eat and a lot of food in the bin only leads to more spilling and worse feed conversion.
Extra feed or watering the newly-imposed piglets had surprisingly no positive effect on growth and feed conversion. For the feeling we do so and perhaps it is also good, only in the research we cannot prove the benefit, the researcher indicates. Of course, you have to make sure you have enough eating places. In the study we used a comb bin with three eating spots for 10 piglets.
Too high water output
There should be no layer of water in frizz or comb bowls. That not only causes water spills, but also feed spills. Cause of water spill can be due to too high a flow rate of the nipple and too high a water pressure. Practical research showed a water delivery of 0.4 to 9 litres per minute, with many companies delivering 3 to 4 litres per minute.
A meat pig can drink 1 to 2 liters per minute, a pig only 250 milliliters. A higher water delivery of the nipple gives risk of waste. Therefore, the experimental farm uses an issue of between 0.5 and 1 litres for the meat pigs.
There can also be too high pressure on the main. If the water sprays into the mouth, this can lead to waste or pigs not drinking properly.
Water quality can be improved
Other focus on drinking water is water quality. In a study 24 out of 27 pig farms found water quality good. Only 12 of these 27 companies had no or little rainfall in the water and at the end of the line this was only the case with 5 out of 27.
Water quality studies showed that coliforms in particular are common. At the source, 13 companies were above target. This was also the case at the end of the leadership. In addition, there were 5 companies that were too high for fecal E. Coli and 8 for enterococci.
