The New Zealand farmer who breeds pigs tends to place either too much emphasis upon the value of pasture, with rather dire effects, or too little, with the result that he deprives himself of a valuable addition to his basic feed supply. In this paper an attempt will be made to assess the value of pasture in the New Zealand pig keeping economy over the whole production cycle from the mating of t...

This study evaluates, for the first time, the influence of biofilms on single and double optical window (SOW and DOW, respectively) fast repetition rate fluorometer (FRRF) measurements of microalgal photosystem-II initial fluorescence (F0), maximum fluorescence (Fm), variable fluorescence (Fv = Fm - F0), quantum yield (Fv/Fm) and functional absorption cross section (σPSII)]. Biofilms with chlor...

The complex of desirable maternal traits includes litter size, mothering ability and milk production, combined with aspects of piglet viability or survival and sow rebreeding performance. There are two major contradictory elements within this trait complex. Firstly, larger litters will be, on average, lighter at birth, and result in an extended duration of farrowing. These characteristics may a...

Colostrum is the main external resource providing piglets with nutrients and maternal immune molecules. Astragalus polysaccharides (APS) have been used as immunopotentiators in vitro and several animal models. This study aimed to determine the effects of APS on immune factors in sow colostrum and milk. The sow diet was supplemented with APS one week before the expected delivery date. Colostrum ...

In recent years there has been a growing interest in the standard of farrowing accommodation for commercial sows in Australia and in many countries around the world. Conventional farrowing crates are used extensively in the pork industry due to the general belief that piglet mortality and morbidity due to accidental crushing by the sow is reduced (Weary et al. 1996). However, restraining the so...

Forty crossbred sows were used in 10 blocks to determine the effects of farrowing pen type and degree of slope on sow-litter performance and behavior. The two pen types were a farrowing pen (2.15 m sow area plus 2.15 x 3 5 m creep area) and a farrowing crate (1.5 x 2.15 m). The two slopes evaluated were level (0% slope) and 8% slope. To collect behavioral data, a sample of litters was videotape...

Inspired by the non-wetting phenomena of duck feathers, the water repellent property of duck feathers was studied at the nanoscale. The microstructures of the duck feather were investigated by a scanning electron microscope (SEM) imaging method through a step-by-step magnifying procedure. The SEM results show that duck feathers have a multi-scale structure and that this multi-scale structure as...

The high performance concrete is a highly complex material that consists of cement, water, blast furnace slag, super-plasticizer, coarse and fine aggregate. All of the materials play a certain role in the compressive strength of concrete. Combined with the information about age, the compressive strength of concrete is determined by eight attributes: 1. Cement (kg/m!) 2. Fly ash (kg/m!) 3. Blast...

Yorkshire and Duroc litter records were used to estimate genetic, phenotypic and environmental relationships between sow body weight and sow productivi ty traits. Two data sets with two subsets each were used to complete this study; 663 and 460 records included li t ter traits only, while 522 and 359 records also contained sow body weight for Yorkshires and Durocs, respectively. Heritabil i ty ...