Analysis on the development status of pig liquid feeding
Pigs are one of the animals raised in captivity in the early days of human beings. They rank first among the six animals and play a very important role in breeding. Pork is an irreplaceable commodity for human consumption, and has the reputation of "pig food is safe for the world". Both farmers and breeding enterprises hope to adopt modern technology to realize healthy pig breeding, meet human consumption needs and bring considerable breeding benefits. In order to realize healthy breeding, people have invented compound feed. Compound feed is one of the greatest inventions of human beings. As a modern technology in the breeding process, it has a historical role in promoting the breeding of livestock and poultry. The most typical representative is solid complete feed. At present, most of the large-scale pig farms in the world are fed with this kind of feed, also known as dry feed, and have achieved good economic benefits. Generally speaking, dry feed has the advantages of reasonable nutritional content, uniformity, and easy storage. However, dry feed also has some disadvantages that are well known, such as large dust inside the pig feeding house, feed residue in dead corners, and difficulty in adding drugs or nutrients.
In fact, in the earlier period, pigs were often fed by mixing water and feed together. This kind of feeding mixed with water and feed is also called liquid feeding, which is very common in small-scale farming represented by farmers, especially when swill can be used. In addition, there are still a small number of large-scale pig farms that use liquid feeding. The initial investment in the construction of liquid feed kitchens realizes liquid feeding in pig farms. At present, liquid feeding accounts for a small proportion in my country. There are many fattening farms in Europe, some Breeding pig farms use liquid feeding.
History of liquid feeding of pigs
Liquid feeding has always existed, almost accompanying the entire history of pig breeding. The definition of liquid feeding is very vague, and many literatures do not clarify its definition. The author of this paper believes that at a certain growth stage of pigs, feed that contains an appropriate proportion of water and can flow like a liquid in the pipeline can be called feed. for liquid feed. Some scholars have also given the definition of pipeline feeding, and some scholars have given some vague names, such as water stew, wet mix, and infiltration material. In essence, it is still a matter of water content, and there is no uniform standard.
Advantages of pig liquid feeding
Liquid feeding has many advantages such as high feed conversion rate, saving feed, saving time and trouble, fast and convenient, less labor, and avoiding waste. As a feeding mode, liquid feeding is highly recommended by some experts, and it has been successfully applied in some farms. The advantages are as follows: 2.1 Improve the environment of pig houses.
is compared to dry feed In terms of feeding pig houses, during the feeding process of dry feed, due to mechanical pipelines, feed leakage, conveying pulverization, falling dust, etc. have caused the air in the house to be dirty, and the pollution of solid particles has increased, giving people a feeling of The feeling of dust everywhere also indirectly creates the impression that the pig house is dirty and messy. The liquid feed just overcomes this shortcoming. The use of pumping method greatly improves the environment inside the pig house because there is no dust, and the surface of the facilities and equipment in the pig house is also much cleaner.
2.2 Improving the welfare level of pigs
Liquid feeding reduces the dust content in the air in the pig house and greatly improves the breeding environment. Long-term use of liquid feeding is beneficial to improve the air quality, thereby reducing the incidence of respiratory diseases in pigs rate, improving the level of breeding welfare. In addition, due to the mixing of water and feed, liquid feeding is beneficial to the digestion and absorption of pigs' intestines, improving the health level of pigs, thereby improving the nutrition of pigs and the quality of pork.
2.3 Increasing the intelligence of pig farms
The most notable features of large-scale pig farms are more pigs, more machines and fewer people. The use of liquid feeding system for large-scale feeding requires more control components, including pneumatic valves, flow pumps, weighing modules, etc. Each branch has independent control, which can realize point-to-point precise feeding and can be controlled The feeding operation of the entire pig house is fully automated, which greatly improves the intelligence level of the pig house. This inevitably requires the use of an automatic control system, including PLC, single-chip microcomputer and other control systems.
2.4 Locally sourced feed can be used
Ground-sourced feed is one of the valuable and available feed sources, and its application value should be fully exploited. Specifically, it includes crop stalks and by-products of the food processing industry, such as seasonal potato vine stems and leaves, processed potato dregs, fermented distiller's grains, leftovers, etc., which can be used in liquid feeding systems . Especially in fermented feed, the use of locally sourced feed is a good way to save costs.
2.5 Improving the digestibility of feed
Liquid feed can provide water that meets the needs at the same time, with good palatability and more balanced nutrition, which is conducive to the peristalsis and digestion and absorption of the gastrointestinal tract of pigs, and improves the utilization rate of feed. At the same time, the feed intake of pigs High, fast growth rate, high feed conversion efficiency.
Disadvantages of liquid feeding
Liquid feeding has unparalleled advantages, but there are also many shortcomings that hinder its popularization and application. The main disadvantages include the following:
3.1 The initial construction cost of the liquid feeding system is high.
Pig farms use liquid feeding to reduce production costs. The feeding system is the original intention of designing and building a pig farm. Cost control is an unavoidable decision-making factor, especially in comparison with mature dry feeding systems, how to reduce the cost of liquid feeding systems is the goal of equipment manufacturers. In the current market, the prices of mainstream liquid feeding systems are still high.
3.2 Difficulties in the operation of the liquid feeding automation system
Some pig farms have introduced foreign advanced liquid feeding systems. Due to various reasons such as difficult operation and lack of technical personnel, the feeding system has been idled and abandoned, which greatly wastes the investment cost. Liquid feeding equipment is widely used in foreign countries, but it cannot be used for a long time due to various reasons such as operating habits, human-computer interaction, parameter setting, personnel flow, and learning difficulties.
3.3 There are still some technical difficulties to be overcome in the liquid feeding system
The current liquid feeding still has some feeding problems that have not been solved, such as the instability of the water-to-material ratio, the deposition of long-distance transportation, the residue of the feeding pipeline, the pumping pressure cannot be adaptively adjusted, and the failure of electrical components After that, it cannot be fed, etc. Although some equipment manufacturers have carried out a lot of optimization work and partially solved the technical problems, these problems will still exist in the future, especially in the pig breeding industry that pays attention to low-cost operations.
The development trend and selection suggestions of liquid feeding
The market share of liquid feeding system in China is still relatively low, which is determined by many reasons, and it is unlikely that all solutions can be solved in a short time, so the future development trend should still be slow The process of climbing. However, in some areas where ground-sourced feed is abundant, more farms may adopt liquid feeding systems. In addition, some companies engaged in cross-field farming, such as fermented food companies, may use liquid feeding systems to equip new pig farms. As for whether to use a liquid feeding system in a pig farm, the author recommends the following:
4.1 Recommend a highly automated liquid feeding system.
Large groups or breeding companies with sufficient investment budgets can consider a highly automated liquid feeding system when building a new pig farm. It will effectively utilize the advantages of liquid feeding, further reduce the cost of breeding, and improve the efficiency of breeding.
4.2 Adding or rebuilding a simple liquid feeding system
Small-scale pig farms may consider building a simple liquid feeding system to meet feeding needs and basic control if they need to use locally sourced feeding materials Water-to-material ratio, timing mixing, pipeline transportation and other functions are all that is needed, which can improve breeding efficiency while reducing initial investment.
4.3 Continue to adopt more mature dry feed feeding system
In some cases, for pig farms that do not have fermented feed or ground-sourced feed raw materials, it may be optimal to adopt a more mature, stable and reliable dry feed feeding system plan.