Value of Monitoring ADG and FCR - Grand Valley Fortifiers

By: João Ferreira, Ph.D.
FNL Monogastric Nutritionist

There is a common phrase in business management, “you can’t manage what you can’t measure,” and it applies so well in animal agriculture. If raising pigs was a sport at the Olympics, I believe eye-balling performance metrics would result in a direct red card without a warning. The metrics of growth performance in animal production serve as an excellent compass on a farm, guiding the producer in achieving business objectives. Setting goals, collecting data, and evaluating it periodically is valuable time that producers must invest in their routine. Average Daily Gain (ADG) and Feed Conversion Ratio (FCR) are important metrics that producers can use to correlate feed investment with returns in meat production.

Historical data from your barn is crucial for making informed decisions about investments and budget allocation in your production system or for reformulating diets according to your goals. There are multiple factors that affect your ADG and FCR. For instance, if the animals become sick or if you wish to test a new feed additive, having historical data allows you to monitor changes in real time. Refer to Figure 1 as an example of data collected from previous herd performance. In Figure 2, the cardinal dark red line represents historical recorded data, and the cardinal light red line shows the current batch. The current batch is not gaining weight as expected. A producer with control over farm data could decide to remove or reduce the inclusion of the alternative feed ingredient.

Figure 1. Example of historic growth data from a farm

Figure 2. Introduction of alternative feed ingredients

Let us go through a few examples to illustrate the importance of monitoring herd data. The first example is a hypothetical one of introducing an alternative feed ingredient in growing and finishing diets. In Western Canada, there are opportunities to use pulse crops such as field peas, faba beans, chickpeas or other crops as canola meal, rye, sunflower meal, and other ingredients. However, the challenge with alternative feed ingredients is the lack of studies and knowledge regarding their nutrient digestibility, metabolizable energy, and the presence of antinutritional factors. Chickpeas, faba beans, and field peas contain resistant starch, tannins, and trypsin inhibitor factors (Tan et. al., 2021), which, depending on their concentration and the amount included in the diet, can impair pig performance. Similarly, canola contains glucosinolates, high fiber, and low amino acid digestibility. Therefore, caution should be taken before adding substantial amounts of alternative feed ingredients into rations.

Another example of the importance of controlling FCR and ADG is related to grain milling on the farm. Grain milling should be adjusted for each growth stage and type of grain. For example, Koo and Nyachoti (2021) studied the effect of three oat particle sizes, 765, 619, and 569 μm, on nutrient and energy digestibility in nursery pigs, resulting in three different metabolizable energy values of 2,091, 2,344, and 2,254 kcal/kg, respectively. In growing and finishing pigs, Rojas and Stein (2015) studied the reduction of corn particle size, 865, 677, 485, and 339 μm, and found metabolizable energy values of 3,313, 3,348, 3,372, and 3,434 kcal/ kg, respectively. In a subsequent study, the same researchers concluded that it is possible to formulate diets with lower soy oil inclusion through corn milling to a finer particle size, while maintaining the same performance (Rojas and Stein, 2016). Other studies have proven that proper grinding of wheat, barley, and corn improves the digestibility of feed ingredients. Incorrect grinding, on the other hand, can impair performance.

Another great example of data utilization in production is basic feed additive testing. By controlling your data and all associated factors (such as the same feed ingredients, specifications, feeding conditions, etc.), you can evaluate how beneficial a feed additive is for your production. You can assess whether the investment in the feed additive is affordable and yields a good return.

Other situations that emphasize the importance of data control include disease outbreaks in the herd, mycotoxin contamination in feed, poor water quality, extreme temperatures, improper feed mixing, and unbalanced diets due to unanalyzed feed ingredients. Conversely, you can associate positive effects on FCR and ADG with factors such as water treatment, the introduction of high-quality feed ingredients, pen modifications, increased feeding space, additional drinkers, and barn improvements.

Pigscale: An in-pen scale serving as a management tool to monitor how a group of pigs is growing.

Therefore, controlling and monitoring FCR and ADG is invaluable for your production system. Having control over your data allows you to interpret it in relation to changes in your production system. It helps you understand performance fluctuations in relation to the many variables affecting pig performance and enables you to intervene in real time before a problem becomes severe. The ADG data that was illustrated in this article was captured using one of the almost 100 IoT PigScales that we have in nurseries and grower/finisher barns across the country.

References:
Rojas, O. J., and H. H. Stein. “Effects of reducing the particle size of corn grain on the concentration of digestible and metabolizable energy and on the digestibility of energy and nutrients in corn grain fed to growing pigs.” Livestock Science 181 (2015): 187-193.
Rojas, O. J., Y. Liu, and H. H. Stein. “Effects of particle size of yellow dent corn on physical characteristics of diets and growth performance and carcass characteristics of growing–finishing pigs.” Journal of Animal Science 94.2 (2016): 619-628.
Koo, Bonjin, and Charles Martin Nyachoti. “Effect of oat particle size on energy and nutrient utilization in growing pigs.” Journal of Animal Science 99.5 (2021) .
Tan, F.P.Y., Wang, L.F., Gao, J., Beltranena, E., Vasanthan, T., and Zijlstra, R.T. “Hindgut fermentation of starch is greater for pulse grains than cereal grains in growing pigs” Journal of Animal Science, 2021, Vol. 99, No. 11, 1–13.

This article was written for the Fall 2024 Swine Grist. To read the whole Swine Grist, click the button below.

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This article was also written for the Fall 2024 Western & Prairie Swine Grist. To read the whole Western Swine Grist, click the button below.

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