Page 12 - Australian Pork Newspaper

Using hair to gauge stress response in pigs
Elanco appoints food
safety and premix
technical sales manager
GLOBAL animal health company Elanco has an- nounced the appoint- ment of Lynell Fisher as its new food safety and premix technical sales manager.
nogastric species, food safety and quality as- surance programs, oc- cupational health and safety, and staff devel- opment,” Mr Hall said.
Based at Allenview in southeast Queens- land, Lynell will rep- resent Elanco products and services to major poultry companies, premix suppliers, feed mills and product merchants throughout Australia and New Zealand.
“Starting her nu- tritional career with Rhône-Poulenc An- imal Nutrition, Lynell served as a technical manager with BEC Feed Solutions and Riverina Australia and then as a senior nu- tritionist with Ridley Agriproducts and We- stons Animal Nutri- tion.
Her portfolio in- cludes the benchmark feed additives Corre- link, Maxiban, Mon- teban, Rumensin, Surmax and Tylan.
“Lynell is also well- versed in animal care, having spent a decade as a qualified veterinary nurse be- fore graduating with a Bachelor of Applied Science degree from Charles Sturt Univer- sity in 1995.”
Working closely with Elanco’s sales, marketing, technical and customer ser- vices teams, Lynell will be responsible for cultivating close cus- tomer relationships, achieving strategic ac- count objectives and supply management.
W hen she’s not at work, Lynell enjoys competing in working sheepdog trials, horse riding and breeding registered cattle.
Elanco national sales manager north Brett Hall said the com- pany was delighted to welcome Lynell to the company.
Elanco is a global leader in the research, development and com- mercialisation of prod- ucts that improve the health and well-being of food and companion animals.
“Lynell has forged a career in livestock nutrition and has ex- tensive experience in preparing feed rations for ruminant and mo-
Founded in 1954, the company operates in 90 countries and has a global turnover of $4.7 billion.
IOWA State Univer- sity animal science researchers are under- taking a study to find out if trimming pigs’ hair can provide insight into how they respond to stressors they encounter, including disease.
Charles F Curtiss Dis- tinguished Professor of agriculture and life sci- ences and principal in- vestigator of the study Jack Dekkers said stress causes the production of the stress hormone cor- tisol and its counterpart dehydroepiandrosterone.
growth at a concentration that reflects their concen- tration in blood, also for humans,” Prof Dekkers said.
their mothers, being trans- ported to different facili- ties and establishing a social order among a new group of pigs.
“Thus, pigs with a low ratio of cortisol to DHEA in hair are less stressed and are better able to cope with the stress they are under.
The researchers aim to use hair samples to iden- tify genetics that allow pigs to respond favour- ably to a wide range of stressful situations, every- thing from being weaned from their mother to being transported, to estab- lishing a social order when mixed with other pigs, to combating disease.
These hormones are de- posited in hair as it grows. Prof Dekkers compares these deposits in hair to
“So, when you cut the hair that you have grown over its lifetime in pieces, it reflects a timeline of the stressors that you’ve been under and how you responded to them.”
Researchers will clip hair samples from the pigs at regular intervals and send the samples to be analysed at the University of Saskatchewan.
“As for humans, stress leads to greater suscepti- bility to disease, reduced welfare and lower produc- tivity.”
The effort could help produce pigs that lead less stressful lives, are more resilient and, therefore, are more productive.
Studying the concentra- tion of cortisol and DHEA in hair samples can help scientists piece together the level of stress an or- ganism has experienced and how it has responded to that stress.
In addition to disease, the researchers are also interested in how pigs respond to typically stressful situations, such as being weaned from
“A high level of cor- tisol is indicative of an acute stress response that is counteracted by a high level of DHEA, which re- flects the ability to cope with stress,” Prof Dekkers said.
Prof Dekkers said stress response and dis- ease response are closely related and identifying genetics that are more resilient to stress will likely also be more resil- ient to disease.
And it all starts with a quick trim.
“These hormones are deposited into hair
The initial goal for the project is to help pork pro- ducers breed pigs that are better able to cope with diseases such as porcine reproductive and respira- tory syndrome.
tree rings.
Studying the rings of a
The research involves pigs raised in a research facility in Quebec Canada as part of a disease resil- ience project.
Prof Dekkers’ lab will receive all the data col- lected from the hair sam- ples and search for pat- terns that indicate which pigs respond to stress better than others, and they’ll look for a low ratio of cortisol to DHEA.
The pigs in the study also have their DNA genotyped for the dis- ease resilience research, allowing the researchers to attempt to find genetic mechanisms that can ac- count for low cortisol to DHEA levels in hair.
tree stump yields clues about that tree’s history.
The pigs are kept under tightly monitored con- ditions that control for disease exposure and stressors.
Days-old piglets stay close to their nearby mother at the Allen E Christian Swine Teaching Farm. Photo by Christopher Gannon
It will require time to refine the practice before it reaches that point, but Prof Dekkers said it is an attractive option because clipping hair is a fast and non-invasive process.
Prof Dekkers said it was possible their research could lead to pork pro- ducers taking hair sam- ples from their own herds to gauge how individual pigs respond to stress.
Producers might use that information to group their pigs together in ways that minimise the potential for stress.
Page 12 – Australian Pork Newspaper, March 2022
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