Curve Feeding Yields Better Growth, Lower Costs

Minnesota producer New Horizon Farms is seeing promising results from curve feeding versus stepped feeding in a commercial facility. The first turn showed improved growth, better feed conversion, and lower cost per pound of gain for pigs fed on a curve versus standard stepped diets.

NHF has a 1,200-head finisher near its Pipestone, MN headquarters equipped with a Feedlogic FeedSaver S-Series system which can feed half the pigs on a feed curve, the other half on a stepped diet. This is allowing a direct comparison of the two feeding strategies with pigs housed in the same facility and managed as part of a normal commercial production system.

For the first turn, half the pigs on one feed line were assigned a standard stepped program which changed the diet four times over a 50 to 220-pound growth period. The other half on another feed line were fed a blend of two base diets over the same growth period. Budgets for the stepped diets were managed from the feed mill servicing the barn while the blended diets were managed by the FeedSaver system.

A feed curve using blended diets was programmed into FeedSaver and pigs eating from that side of the barn had their diet altered automatically as they ate through budgeted amounts. Through the 50 to 220-pound growth, the diet was changed over 40 times, most frequently during the early growth stages when lysine requirements are changing more rapidly.

Health challenges in the barn took a greater toll on the step-fed pigs, increasing mortality almost two percent (see Table 1). The curve-fed pigs averaged almost 3% better ADG, netting almost 4,000 additional pounds of gain over the turn. The gain was made with around the same feed consumption, allowing over 2% improvement in feed conversion and lowering feed cost per pound of gain.

Table 1 – NHF Turn 1 Performance

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