Establishing Bedding Requirements on Trailers Transporting Market Weight Pigs in Warm Weather
Simple Summary Transport is an inevitable process in the modern swine industry. Trailers transporting pigs are bedded with straw, wood shavings, corn stover, or sand. Excess bedding may detrimentally affect the micro-environment inside the trailer during warm weather and in turn negatively affect animal based measures and transport losses. These experiments aim to determine the amount of bedding that is ideal for market weight pig transport during warm weather. Abstract During warm weather, incorrect bedding levels on a trailer transporting market weight pigs may result in heat stress, fatigue, and death. Two experiments were conducted in June and July of 2011; Experiment 1 used 80 loads (n = 13,887 pigs) to determine the effects of two bedding levels (3 (68.1 kg) or 6 bags (136.2 kg) of wood shavings/trailer [each bag contained 22.7 kg, 0.2 m3]) on pig measures (surface temperature, vocalizations, slips and falls, and stress signs). Experiment 2 used 131 loads (n = 22,917 pigs) to determine the effects of bedding (3 vs. 6 bags) on transport losses (dead, sum of dead- and euthanized- on arrival; non-ambulatory, sum of fatigued and injured; total transport losses sum of dead and non-ambulatory). Bedding did not affect surface temperature, vocalizations, or slips and falls (p = 0.58, p = 0.50, and p = 0.28, respectively). However, pigs transported on 6 bags/trailer had 1.5% more stress signs than pigs transported on 3 bags/trailer (p < 0.01). No differences were observed between bedding levels for non-ambulatory, dead, or total transport losses (p = 0.10, p = 0.67, and p = 0.34, respectively). Within the context of these experiments, bedding level did not result in deleterious effects on pig measures or transport losses. However, using more bedding may result in higher costs to the industry. Therefore, 3 bags of bedding/trailer may be used when transporting market weight pigs during warm weather in the Midwestern U.S.
Effects of Presorting on Stress Responses at Loading and Unloading and the Impact on Transport Losses from Market-Weight Pigs1
The objective of this study was to determine the effects of presorting before loading on stress responses and transport losses at the slaughter facility in the market-weight pig. A total of 5,802 pigs (n = 33 loads) were used in a randomized complete block design with 2 treatments. The presorted (PRE) and not presorted (NON) treatments each had 292 pigs/pen (0.65 m2/pig). For the PRE treatment, internal swing gates were used to presort pigs manually 18 h before loading, whereas pigs in the NON treatment were sorted from pen mates at the time of marketing. Treatments were assigned to trailer decks in an alternating manner. Data were analyzed using generalized linear mixed model methodology, and loading time was analyzed using mixed model procedures. Loading time differed (P 0.05) different. There were no (P > 0.05) differences between treatments for total losses at the slaughter facility. Two pigs in the PRE treatment and zero pigs in the NON treatment were classified as dead on arrival. In conclusion, presorting market-weight pigs reduced loading time and some stress responses on farm; however, no treatment differences were observed for stress responses or transport losses at the slaughter facility.
Point-to-point and point-to-multipoint communications
A network, such as wired and/or wireless LAN, is configured to have both point-to-point and point-to-multipoint connections. The point-to-multipoint connection(s) is used to communicate information between a plurality of the stations (or modem, or transceivers) in the network, whereas the point-to-point connection(s) are used to communicate information between only 2 stations in the network with the ability to, for example, maximize performance (rate/reach/BER/latency/etc) between those two stations. A master station allocates one or more frequency bands to the various point-to-multipoint and point-to-point connections.