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Our Approach |
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Our Approach |
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The holistic approach to pig production |
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Zarkos-Smith Associates |
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An Holistic Approach
Zarkos-Smith Associates offers an unique holistic approach to pig nutrition management, considering all elements of the pigs’ environment, integrating veterinary, nutritional, environmental, and genetic data to maximise on-unit profitability.
A Step-By-Step Approach
Our step-by-step approach ensures that each of our bespoke feed formulations is formulated, tested and continually monitored to ensure that you get the very best from your stock.
Step 1: Initial farm visit to gather key data Step 2: Analysis of raw materials Step 3: Assessment of current & potential lean Step 4: Formulation of feed programme via Step 5: Application of feed programme Step 6: Review of programme effectiveness Step 7: Ongoing monitoring of programme
ZSA’s ProfiMax Pig Model
The key to improving net farm profitability is to optimise the lean (muscle) gain from birth to slaughter. While the genetics of the pig will obviously influence lean gain, it is the supply of energy and amino acids for a known muscle growth that will optimise both performance and farm profitability.
This is the benefit of our ProfiMax Pig Model, which can:
¨ Assess the lean gain potential on the farm ¨ Identify the performance potential of the boars and gilts ¨ Identify the effects of disease and environment (temperature, overstocking etc) on performance ¨ Enable the design diets to optimise the lean gain
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It should be remembered that the lean gain of the pig tends to reach a maximum of around 60-70kg liveweight.
The typical response of lean (blue line) and fat (red line) in the pig is shown in the graph.
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In the period from weaning to 30kg it is essential to maximise feed intake of diet(s) designed to stimulate lean gain, which will lead to the pig reaching maximum muscle growth earlier than 60-70kg. The pig is then more able to grow to slaughter more effectively.
While the use of ProfiMax on farm improves the daily lean gain by what could be considered as a small amount (10g/d) in the period from weaning to 30kg liveweight, its success in terms of net farm profitability is very significant:
¨ Pigs get to slaughter 7 days faster ¨ Backfat levels reduced by 0.5mm ¨ Improvement in both DLWG and FCR ¨ Improvement in grading profile ¨ Improvement in net farm profitability (on 250 sows at 2004 feed prices)
Farmers can clearly see - by a routine analysis of their grading information and comparing the on-farm performance with our predictions - that the use of our ProfiMax Pig Model demonstrably and significantly improves net farm profitability.
Thus, by providing such simple information as:
¨ Grading sheets ¨ Known days from birth/weaning to slaughter (best and worst) ¨ Indication of feed intake at various stages
ProfiMax has been successfully used to provide both information and direction on the next step in growing the pig more cost effectively, which is all about optimising lean gain. |
