D4—Lancaster Farming, Saturday, October 6,1984
emJP Pork Prose
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Fifty years from now, I suspect
hogs will eat from feeders much
like the ones we use today. And I’ll
bet most producers will still be
feeding sows with a cart and a
scoop. But over the next half
century, new technology will
change a lot of other aspects of hog
fanning. We’ll be able to grow
more hogs faster on less feed and
hopefully provide the consumer
with a better product.
One significant breakthrough is
this business of recombinant DNA -
- some folks call it genetic
engineering. You’ll recall that
DNA is the material m a cell’s
nucleus that contains the “genetic
blueprint." You have DNA, your
hogs have DNA, even the E. coli
bugs that cause scours in your
farrowing house have DNA.
Scientists can now take a tiny piece
of DNA (called a gene) from, say,
a virus and splice it onto the DNA
in a type of bacteria. Is that such a
big deal? You bet it is.
The gene that they insert into
bacteria could, for example, “tell”
the bacteria to make a protein that
you need to vaccinate your sows.
Scientists could grow these special
bacteria on a large scale - and
harvest the protein.
Kenneth B. Kephart
Extension Livestock Spec.
University of Del.
What else could you make using
recombinant DNA techniques?
Growth hormone. Ask Dr. Terry
Etherton at Penn State University
what growth hormone has to do
with raising hogs. He’ll tell you
that daily growth hormone in
jections can improve growth rates
by 12 to 15 percent, and feed ef
ficiency by 20 percent. That’s
right, 20 percent. Considering feed
costs at $B/cwt and overhead costs
of growing hogs at 20 cents/day,
growth hormone could save you $ll
or $l2 a head. But there’s more.
Etherton comments: “In our last
trial, pigs receiving growth hor
mone had 18 percent less carcass
fat, but still showed an im
provement in loin-eye marbling. ”
Unfortunately, there are a few
hangups with growth hormone.
“Obviously, producers can’t be
injecting pigs every day,”
Etherton says. “Soon, we hope to
come up with a better delivery
system, perhaps an implant. And
it's still too expensive. Right now
growth hormone costs over $2,500 a
gram. I’m hoping they’ll have the
recombinant technique perfected
in the next three years so it
becomes practical to use on the
farm.”
Scientists will soon be using
genetic engineering to make other
compounds, like amino acids, too.
Currently lysine and methionine
are the only amino acids cheap
enough to use in swine feed. Once
the cost of a few others like
tryptophan and threonine get into
range, we’ll be able to take most of
the soybean meal out of hog rations
and replace it with corn and
synthetic amino acids.
Another recent development,
already used extensively with
cattle, is embryo transfer. Take a
high performing sow, superovulate
her and breed her to a high per
forming boar. Wait a couple of
days, then flush out the developing
embryos and put them into several
recipient sows. The donor sow can
go on producing a new batch of
embryos, while the recipients
carry the litters to term and raise
the pigs. Ideally, these pigs would
provide more genetic potential
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than anything you’ve got in your
herd.
Artificial insemination is yet
another technique that can im
prove your efficiency, but it hasn’t
caught on to a great extent in the
hog industry. Most producers find
it impractical to breed artificially
on a large scale. But a lot of folks
are using A.I. to breed their best
sows. They can then derive
replacement gilts and herd boars
from these offspring. This allows
producers to close their herds,
which is a big step in preventing
disease transmission.
So biotechnology has given us
management tools that are useful
now, plus several more down the
road. But before you open the door
to tomorrow’s research, take a
hard look at your situation today
and ask yourself if you’re using the
knowledge that already exists.
One simple thing you can do is
keep good records. Total herd feed
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Use performance-tested
breeding stock. Buy boars on the
basis of looks and performance.
Know how well the pigs do on your
farm, then bring in the blood lines
that will do even better.
Make solid efforts at marketing.
Look at all the markets in your
area. Consider grade and yield
programs. And sell your pigs when
the time is right, not just when it’s
convenient.
Keep your pigs healthy and keep
them comfortable. Mange,
efficiency, breeding record,
conception rate, number
weaning weights and post-weaning
rate of gain are just a few of the
things you ought to be jolting
down. Use these records to spot
problems and make decisions. If
the numbers are too overwhelming
for pencil and paper, a computer
might help.
(Turn to Page D 5)