5 November 2024

3 minute read

By: Lee Williamson

Europe

North America

Dr. Fredrik Sandberg, Senior R &D Nutritionist with Furst-McNess, spoke with The Pig Site’s Sarah Mikesell at the 2024 World Pork Expo in Des Moines, Iowa, USA.

Editor’s note: this interview has been edited for length and clarity.

We are going to talk about Furst-McNess and your trifecta approach. Let us start with feed.

We take an extremely broad approach where we look at feed, air, and water together. In our feed program, we developed specific feed mitigants, such as FeedArmor, to try and protect from diseases coming in through the feed. We also have a unique gel that allows us to do creep feeding without having to handle bags. Our Furst Piglet Gel has been an enormous success for us. We are launching it here at the World Pork Expo; it is brand new this year.

We talked about feed, so let us discuss the next component, air.

In terms of air, it is always an exceedingly difficult area to deal with, especially in large barns, but we have collaborated with a company to develop a hypochlorous fogging system. Hypochlorous acid is a very well-known disinfectant that has been used in hospitals. It is safe for people. We have worked to develop what is called a dry mist. Adding into the air, no moisture, but we can completely sanitize the air in an entire barn while the animals are still present. It is highly effective across a lot of several types of diseases.

Let us talk about the third component of the trifecta, water.

In terms of water, one of the challenging parts of disease especially is that it reduces feed intake. If feed intake goes down, we do not have many solutions, so we use water supplementation to deliver very high levels of technologies like monoglycerides which are very well-known to be beneficial. Through some developments we have been able to deliver very high grams per day in consumption, and we have done extensive research into that for the last five years.

Using the trifecta approach, what is your goal?

The goal is that production is multifactorial. There is never a silver bullet to solve any problem. Furst-McNess is a company that is over 100 years old. We work with all the species and when you do that you realize that to solve a problem you must consider all aspects.

By being specific about integrating a system of feed, air and water, we can see real impacts. We have demonstrated this working with producers across the Midwest. When you dial in and focus very carefully on each segment, the sum of the total is more than its parts.

Some of these things, like water, are not always top of-mind to producers. How important is water and water quality?

I think one of the challenges with water is that people usually must make a choice of using one technology, whether it is antibiotics, aspirin, probiotic or an acidifier. We have developed two separate technologies. One is Furst Strike Direct, and the other is Furst Protect Direct. The technology that we use to deliver the monoglycerides, which are fats through drinking water, allows us to deliver them simultaneously with drugs. Our product is an emulsifier in the flavoring, and it helps deliver those antibiotics. For example, anti-inflammatories like meloxicam to be delivered more effectively.