A swine nutritionist with the University of Guelph credits a dramatic increase in liquid byproducts from biofuel and food processing for an increased interest in liquid feeding in Ontario. With liquid feeding systems, feed is prepared in a central mixing tank then pumped through lines to individual troughs where the pigs can consume it.
While considered new in North America, countries like the Netherlands, Germany and Denmark they feed up to 50 percent of market pigs using liquid feeding systems and in Ireland that figure is close to 90 percent. Dr. Kees De Lange told delegates to the Western Swine Nutrition Conference in Winnipeg this week, in North America the pockets of liquid feeding are in Ontario. He estimates producers raise 20 percent of the finishing pigs in southwestern Ontario on liquid feeding systems.
“I think the main driver of liquid feeding in Ontario has been the use of inexpensive liquid co-products fro the human food and the biofuel industry,” said De Lange. “Think of co-products from milk like whey, from the corn syrup industry, Coca-Cola uses lots of sugars derived from corn, and other liquid co-products are byproducts from the alcohol industry.” He said there’s a tremendous by-stream of liquid co-products the industry can use to feed pigs.
“We’ve heard about corn distillers grains and solubles and, in particular, those solubles can be utilized more efficiency if you feed them to pigs in liquid feeding systems,” said De Lange.
Other drivers have been changes and beneficial effects on the well-being of the pig. In particular, in young animals there may be some beneficial effects on gut development as well. “When the pig is moved from the sow, which is of course a liquid diet of milk, we tend to change them quickly to a completely dry feed and this liquid feeding system may help transition from the sow’s liquid food to a dry food as well,” he added. De Lange notes liquid feeding systems are more expensive but typically pay back within three to five years depending on the availability of co-products.