High-tech swine research center goes ‘online’

By Kevin Schulz
The Land Editor

January 10, 2007 05:43 pm

— Research is nothing new for veterinarians at the Swine Vet Center in St. Peter, but that research recently took a step forward — a big step.
On Dec. 18 the first shipment of three-week-old pigs came into the new SVC Research facility, where they will stay until they are shipped to market.
From the day they enter the barn, the pigs will be studied for a number of production factors, much like what the vets have done on clients’ farms in the past.
“We have done research on clients’ farms, but research needs replication to confirm the findings,” said Tim Loula, veterinarian with the Swine Vet Center. This barn, large enough to house 2,288 pigs, will allow for that replication to take place. Each pig will be sexed, weighed and tagged as they enter the building. Loula said the pigs will be assigned to test pens based on weight and sex, creating a uniform pen of pigs for experimental purposes.
Each pig will again be weighed at the end of the nursery period, or eight weeks after they first entered the barn, and then again as they are shipped to market. Entire pens of the pigs will be weighed every two weeks throughout their life in the barns.
This first SVC Research barn, located south of Gaylord in Kelso Township of Sibley County, is divided into two rooms, each with 40 holding pens. Each pen will hold 25 pigs. There are also extra pens to allow for sick or off-test animals.
This first barn is a contract test barn for Wakefield Pork, while a second barn to be completed by mid-January will be a contract test barn for Schwartz Farms in Sibley Township of Sibley County. A third barn is planned, but neither a site nor a contractor have been determined. SVC Research is a division of the Swine Vet Center.
Right time, right facility
Loula said he and his partners had been toying with the idea of creating such a research facility, but the time hadn’t been quite right. Last winter they started to talk more seriously about such a venture, and then they received quite a feather for their cap. Mike Brumm, well-known swine researcher at the University of Nebraska, has retired and relocated to North Mankato, starting Brumm Swine Consultancy. Sheri Colgan, a research technician with Brumm at the U of N, has also made the move north.
Brumm said this new barn dwarfs the research barn he had in Nebraska in size. “We didn’t have a feeding system like they have here,” he said, “but the research capabilities are pretty much the same.”
Pens are divided by metal gating prohibiting pigs from jumping from one pen to the next. “If you get a pig to jump into another pen, your study is done,” Loula said. “We need to keep the research as ‘clean’ as possible.”
In a normal finishing barn, side-by-side pens usually share a common feeder, with both pens receiving the same ration. In the SVC Research barn, each pen gets its own four-hole dry feeder. This means that each pen of pigs can, and more than likely will, receive a separate ration.
Loula said the setup will allow four test groups in each of the two rooms, and the 40 separate pens will allow the replication that researchers desire. Each pen also has two bowl drinkers that can be connected to one of four water sources, thus allowing possible water treatment testing or administration of necessary medications to specific pens.
The feeders in each room are fed by a Feed Logic feed delivery system, which consists of a motorized hopper that moves between feeders on a ceiling-mounted track. The hopper, equipped with a scale, automatically delivers diets from any one of eight bulk bins. There are eight separate feed bulk bins for each 40-pen room.
Initially researchers will be looking at water and feed trials, but Loula said the barn is set up to even run equipment trials down the road.
All feed-use and water-flow data is logged by a computer and is closely monitored, as is temperature, fan run times and heater run times. This data will be available for upload to the internet for viewing and control.
Remote control
While the SVC barn will be manned, it is equipped with technology to keep an eye on things while the human help is away.
GrowTRAC Service, a part of Val-Co., offers producers another set of eyes and ears, and can alert producers to problems in the barn. “This system has intelligent alarms that follow a pattern in the barn, and when the pattern isn’t normal, then it sends an alarm,” said Judy Stenzel, Val-Co. product manager from Cokato. The GrowTRAC system can be set to alert the producer to high-energy use, a low fuel tank, low feed-water usage, environmental thresholds and can even be set up to serve as a security system. Producers can be alerted via e-mail to a personal computer, a call to a land line phone or pager, or a text or voice message sent to a cell phone. “It can also be set up to call a series of people,” Stenzel said. “It can be programmed so that if you have certain people working various days, the system will know who to contact to match their work schedule.”
Once an alarm has been received, the producer will be informed of the reason for the alarm, and they can take necessary action. Some of that action can be taken without even leaving their house, or wherever they may be. “Wherever you have a computer with internet access you can control what may be wrong in your barn,” Stenzel said. “Obviously, if the problem is caused by a mechanical failure, you will need to have someone take care of the problem in person.”
Producers will be able to access reports of the entire system, right down to the chronology of the alerts as they are sent out. “You’ll get a report on when the call went out, how long it took to be answered and who answered it,” Stenzel said.
While a management tool for any grower, Stenzel said this system can be of specific benefit to the integrated hog producer. “A producer with a number of contracted barns can get a complete report on all of their growers’ barns, and they can see who is doing a good job and those who is not. ... You’ll also be able to see where they aren’t doing a good job so they can improve.”
GrowTRAC has only been up and running for six to eight months, she said, and there are currently nine beta sites. This SVC barn is a pilot project for the GrowTRAC system.
Data management
Another high-tech management tool in the barn comes from MetaFarms in the form of i-Production, which according to Tom Stein is an integrated production software package. A veterinarian by training, Stein developed this software “suite” which features four integrated applications: Enterprise Manager, Sow Manager, Finish Manager and Sales Manager.
Stein, who created the popular PigChamp, saw the need for a software package to meet today’s swine production standards. “This package gives producers very detailed information that can help them make the proper management decisions,” he said. “It very clearly details where a producer may need to make some changes in the operation so they don’t have to sift through a lot of data to get to what they need.”
An electronic interface with packers also allows producers to get data on their hogs even after they have left the farm. “The day after the pigs are sent, you get a report back,” he said.
A complaint often filed against such technology, is that it isn’t feasible for anyone but the very large producer.
Not so, Stein said. “Since this is web-based, it can be feasible for all sizes of producers. ... we scale the cost of the software to the size of the producer.” As an example, Stein said a 250-sow unit could be looking at a fee of about $99 per month, an amount he feels the producer can receive back through management improvement from the data received.

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