High-tech feeders bring big gains to the industry

The tasty pork products that consumers love come from well-fed, healthy pigs.

On their way to market weight – about 250 pounds for the Berkshire hogs on the N.C. A&T University Farm – a pig can eat as many as six times a day, inducing feed costs that can add up for farmers.

At the same time, pigs also need a healthy environment with space to root, lounge and grow.

“One hog farmer may have more than 100 pigs in their barn,” said Derrick Coble, Ph.D., swine geneticist in the Department of Animal Sciences. “They need to be able to assess the animals’ performance and give them a good environment, while controlling costs.”

Pork is one of North Carolina’s top two food commodities second only to poultry meat from broiler chicks. In 2017, there were 9 million hogs – large pigs – in the state, and 2,400 permitted hog farms.

With his team, Coble is testing one solution: feed intake recording equipment, or FIRE, feeders. Made by Osborne Industries, these feeders automate the measurement of the amount the animals eat each day.

“The daily intake records give us insight into their behavior – what environments they’re visiting, what their habits are, and their overall growth,” Coble said. “”We are then able to look at their tissues, like the small intestine, and correlate their feed intake with their gene expression. That can help us identify which genes are associated with nutrient uptake and utilization.”

When a hungry animal steps onto the FIRE feeder’s platform, the machine identifies it using the radio frequency identification tag in its ear and accesses records of its previous visits. As the pig eats, a sensitive load cell continually weighs the trough and feed, allowing the feeder to record the time and duration of each visit and the weight of the feed consumed. Another load cell weighs the animal. The information is transferred in real-time to a personal computer into an application on Coble’s phone.

“We can generate reports and study that data to come up with a feed conversion ratio,” Coble said.  “The ratios are important because they help the farmer to know how much amount of feed will be required in the growth cycle of animals. This serves as a powerful tool by letting the farmer know what choices he or she should make in order to maximize the profitability of their business. We are feeding them a variety of diets for later-stage growth, and we can study which is the most nutritionally sound and cost-effective.”

Coble and his team have added another dimension to the study by placing four feeders in the swine unit’s outdoor hoop structure. Capable of housing 15 pigs in each of its two pens, the structure allows the pigs to have freedom of movement and practice natural behaviors, such as rooting and wallowing, along with the ability to be fed on demand.

The addition of the hoop structure also fits the industry’s trend to more animal welfare-friendly production, Coble said. An initiative launched by the National Pork Board, called “We Care,” outlines the industry’s commitment to food safety, animal welfare, public health, the environment, and the people and communities involved with pork production.

“Testing the feeders in what is essentially an outdoor environment will allow us to see how another factor affects the animals’ health and weight gain,” he said. “It’s also a part of our commitment to ethical animal treatment.”

The feeders are more than a fancy piece of artificial intelligence, Coble said; they are significant tools for both Animal Sciences students and small farmers across the state.

“This research benefits both small farmers and the industry overall, as they look for alternatives to traditional production practices,” Coble said. “At the same time, it gives our students experience with the same equipment they’ll be using in industry.”