Breakthrough in Feed Management of Group Housed Sows
Feed management is of major importance in extending the longevity of highly prolific sows. The energy and nutrient requirements of these sows must be met accurately during gestation and lactation, to achieve sustainable high performance.
Under forthcoming European welfare legislation, gestating sows must be housed in groups by 2014. But group housing makes individual monitoring and management very difficult for herd managers.
That is why Trouw Nutrition has developed Marathon - a new feed management system for electronic sow feeders, that makes use of video image analysis and individual sow data.
Marathon’s trial results are excellent, with the new product’s performance on two commercial farms equalling its performance in controlled conditions at our Swine Research Centre.
Trouw Nutrition’s Dutch feed company Hendrix UTD demonstrated the Marathon system at the recent VIV Show: an advance preview of the near future!
Vegitech project optimises fat choice of purchase and production
Due to new European regulations, the use of animal fat in feed is limited.
Changing over from animal fat to vegetable fat often has a dramatic effect on feed quality. The use of fats in pelleted feeds can be divided in 2 groups - the fats added in the meal, prior to pelleting and fats used for coating the pellets. Different fats are recommended for each application.
Trouw Nutrition’s Vegitech project ran exhaustive tests to establish which fats are the fittest solutions for every application.