Precision Feeding Hits the Mark

Whether feeding a pig or landing a plane, precision is paramount. 

That may be why interest in precision feeding is taking off. Done correctly, it can reduce costs and aid the environment. With that as their goal, scientists are making great strides with their project “Decreasing GHG emissions, feed costs and labour requirements by precision feeding”.

“The benefits of precision feeding are clear, so the next goal is widespread adoption on farm,” says Laetitia Cloutier, senior manager - Feeding and Animal Nutrition with the CDPQ (Centre de développement du porc du Québec inc.). 

Through presentations, Cloutier has seen much interest from producers in precision feeding and implementing it on their farms. To take that next step, the system must be well tested in a commercial environment, simple to apply and ready to use.

“There is equipment available today for group feeding, but often producers don’t know how to create and implement the proper feeding program and formulate the feeds,” says Cloutier. “Precision feeding is very different from a conventional system and not easy to adopt. By the end of this project, we hope to have some instructions for producers on how best to implement precision feeding, either with large groups or individually.”

Getting real

Part of making precision feeding user friendly is finding practical ways to apply it in the real world. For example, the system requires regular weighing of pigs, something that is simply not yet practical on farm. Instead, this study is working on a simplified approach where they take the initial weight of pigs in the grow-finish barn and project weight gains based on a growth curve divided by sex. 

Precision feeding may not be easy at first, but the payoff is substantial. Estimates of feed cost savings range from eight to ten dollars per pig, with a reduction in nitrogen and phosphorus of about 20 to 30 per cent. 

“In addition to cutting costs for producers, precision feeding aids the planet by lowering greenhouse gas emissions by five to eight per cent and protecting the health of workers by reducing the presence of ammonia,” says Cloutier. 

While there is still much to do on this study, the team is making great strides. In 2024-25, they successfully applied deep learning (a type of machine learning that teaches computers to perform tasks by learning from examples, much like humans do) and computer vision methods to automatically detect feeder gates and nearby pigs using the feeder. The goal is to develop a computer vision algorithm capable of predicting pig body weight in real time from images.

Of note, in individual precision feeding systems, pigs receive a blend of two feeds whose proportions are adjusted daily to match their changing nutrient requirements. While one feed is formulated to meet higher amino acid requirements, the second must contain much lower nutrient concentrations to accommodate the declining requirements of pigs later in the growing period. 

This low-nutrient feed can be difficult to formulate using conventional cereals and protein-rich ingredients alone. High-fibre ingredients such as Timothy meal can help achieve the appropriate nutrient dilution while also replacing part of the cereals in the diet with a non-human-edible feed resource. Timothy meal is a finely ground form of Timothy hay that is rich in fiber and essential for the digestive health of animals.

Most recently, life cycle analysis demonstrated that Timothy meal substantially reduced the environmental burden associated with feed ingredient production compared with conventional ingredients such as corn and wheat. 

In fact, Timothy meal reduced global warming potential by approximately 50% relative to conventional cereal ingredients. However, although Timothy inclusion lowered the environmental impact of feed production itself, it also reduced feed efficiency and growth performance, partially offsetting these environmental benefits.

“The life cycle analysis also demonstrated that precision feeding during the growing-finishing phase consistently reduced global warming and acidification compared with conventional phase feeding,” says Cloutier. “In contrast, as an example, even if precision feeding during gestation reduced environmental impacts, gestating sows account for a relatively small proportion of the overall environmental footprint of pork production.”

In a group feeding trial, precision feeding systems were able to maintain pig performance while improving amino acid utilization efficiency and reducing the oversupply of nutrients. 

“Group precision feeding represents a practical and scalable alternative to individual precision feeding systems,” says Cloutier. “By better matching dietary lysine supply to the pigs’ requirements, it can reduce unnecessary lysine intake, with a reduction equivalent to about one-third of that achieved with individual precision feeding. At the same time, group precision feeding improves nitrogen utilization without compromising pig growth performance or health status.”

As part of the study, trials evaluating the maximum number of pigs that can be managed per precision feeding station indicated that 24 pigs per feeder generated excessive feeder occupancy and competition, negatively affecting performance. 

“The first trial showed that ratios of 16 and 18 pigs per feeder seems to provide the best compromise between feeder use and animal growth,” says Cloutier. “When we tried 12 pigs per feeder, it did not improve performance enough to justify lower feeder utilization efficiency. Another trial is being conducted this year to confirm these results and further validate the optimal pig-to-feeder ratios.”

Like any successful project, this one is relying on the diverse expertise of several scientists, something Cloutier is quick to acknowledge.

Dr. Aline Remus with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) is the project leader. Her main focus is improving nutrient requirement models, particularly for amino acids, for individualized precision feeding, as well as assessing environmental benefits, including GHG reductions.

As co-leader, Dr. Marie-Pierre Létourneau from Université Laval works on phosphorus and calcium requirement models for individualized precision feeding

Dr. Cloutier, who is also a co-leader, is focused on the practical implementation of individualized precision feeding for commercial farms.

In the end, feeding pigs and flying planes are all about hitting the mark. Through projects like this, science hopes to smooth the landing for producers across the country.