Swine companies announce new products that will be showcased at the upcoming World Pork Expo in Des Moines, Iowa, on June 9-11.
Hog Slat, Inc. Launches New Magnum Series Feeders
Hog Slat, Inc., introduces new Magnum series feeders. The Magnum Series Feeders provide increased trough space to accommodate the needs of larger-sized animals, the company said in a release.
“Our Magnum series of dry feeders give producers even more choices when selecting feeders to match their feeding program,” Hog Slat’s sales manager Fritz Richards said in a release. “We expanded the Magnum base to give larger hogs an additional two inches of feeder depth. Producers can also choose feeder openings ranging from 14 to 15 inches in width.”
The company added a new style of divider for the wean-to-finish models called HyVis. This modified rodded divider provides pig separation while allowing more visibility for the caretakers, Hog Slat said.
They also introduced a new adjustment option named Lever Loc. This adjustment provides 25 positive locking stops, each moving the feed gate a precise 1/16-inch, which the company said makes adjusting the feed very repeatable from site to site along with simplifying employee training.
Although the increase in finishing weights has received more attention, the same holds true for nursery pigs; according to Hog Slat product engineer Jamie Royal in the release.
“Looking at the recently updated information (Condotta et al. 23), an 11-pound pig has an average shoulder width of 5-1/2 inches. At 22-pounds, it’s seven inches, and that changes to 8-3/8-inches when the pig reaches 44 pounds. Standard nursery feeders have a headspace that measures six by six inches. Our Magnum feeder increases the available headspace to eight inches by eight inches,” he explained.
For more information, go to www.hogslat.com/stainless-steel-pig-feeders.
Osborne Releases New Small Animal Performance Testing System
Understanding the correlation between individual animal performance at a young age and performance in the finishing cycle has been lacking within the industry for decades, Osborne said in a release. Methods of testing young, nursery-sized animals has often involved individually isolating animals and manual, labor-intensive monitoring of performance characteristics affected by genetics, feed, pharmaceuticals, and other factors.
For the first time ever, Osborne announces the release of the first automated pig performance testing system for nursery-sized pigs in small groups. SaFIRE (Small Animal Feed Intake Recording Equipment) automatically monitors individual feed intake and growth of pigs from 14 lbs. (6 kg) to 50 lbs. (23 kg). This automated testing in a group environment accurately simulates commercial production, providing data on individual animal performance for genetic, feed, and pharmaceutical testing, the company said in a release.
The SaFIRE system leverages the technology of Osborne’s FIRE (Feed Intake Recording Equipment) system, which is the worldwide standard for performance testing of finishing animals. Completely automated data collection eliminates manual testing methods and provides access to real world, commercially-simulated data.
The company said with the SaFIRE system, geneticists and researchers can reliably and accurately identify the effects of various factors on the performance of small animals. Testing genetics, nutrition and diets, non-traditional feedstuffs, and the effects of various management protocols can be done reliably with SaFIRE, the company said.
RFID (radio frequency identification) technology identifies individual animals at the single-space feeding station and automatically collects valuable data including feed intake, time and duration of eating events, body weight, ADG, and feed conversion.
The data collected with SaFIRE is available instantly for genetic research and management decisions with the WinFIRE RT software application. Changes in health status or growth can quickly be identified with the application’s real-time monitoring capabilities.
Learn more at www.osbornelivestockequipment.com.
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