Centre of Excellence

    Intelligent neonate nutrition

    Exploring and refining our knowledge of neonates and the way nutrition influences lifetime performance is the only way to drive real progress.

    So, we’re investing heavily… we’re not only committing to £500k per annum in University research agreements, but we have built our very own state-of-the-art Innovation Farm in the leading swine producing market, Spain.

    Our innovation farm includes:

    • A cloud-based environmental and production control system

    • Automatic feeding, allowing individual feed delivery to individual pens

    • Links to the maternity farm, allowing pre-weaning nutrition evaluation

    • We are testing 42,000 piglets a year under commercial conditions

    • Smart ‘Insight’ feeders and electronically tagged piglets to record all data at individual piglet level

    • Links to grower/finisher farms to fully explore lifetime performance

    "We’re serious about innovation so we’re giving our experts all the freedom, empowerment, and resources to become a leading influence in safe, sustainable food production."

    An ethos of research 

    Our commitment to research and development in the swine sector in Spain, Europe, and the world is reflected in this project. Our Centre of Excellence has been established to reduce the gap between research environments, where new nutritional programmes are developed, and production environments, where they are implemented, so that the results of our nutritional solutions are equally satisfactory in both environments.

    The application farm allows us to recreate the most similar conditions to those of the production environments and, in turn, to demonstrate the benefits of a holistic approach to piglet nutrition, ensuring the welfare and optimal performance of the animals in all aspects.

    What is the Centre of Excellence?

    The Centre of Excellence is our pig nutritional programmes application farm, in a near-productive environment, allowing us to assess our products' efficacy under controlled conditions and provide better solutions.

     

    Featuring pioneering facilities in the sector, the Centre of Excellence will enable us to conduct studies and gather information to understand and improve neonatal nutrition, providing a more comprehensive service and better technical assistance. 

     

    Batch Farrowing System:

    Improved biosecurity

    8,400 piglets arrive every 10 weeks

    5 rounds per year

    Conducting 35 trials per year

     

    In 7 rooms:

    • 52 pens per room
    • 24 piglets per pen

    Each room is equipped with sensors to monitor the environmental parameters, such as:

    • Ammonia
    • CO2
    • Indoor and outdoor temperature
    • Relative humidity

    Intelligent pens (with PigInsight technology) for daily recording of:

    • Individual piglet body weight
    • Individual piglet feed intake
    • Individual piglet water consumption

    Automatic systems:

    • Mixing and delivery of feed, avoiding cross-contamination
    • Water dosing

    The facilities, pioneering technology in the field

     

    The Centre of Excellence, which has pioneering facilities exclusive in Europe, is equipped with the most advanced technology, such as the automatic pig feed mixing and delivering systems, controlled by the computer software.

     

    The farm, made up of 7 rooms with a capacity to accommodate 8,400 piglets, has systems for monitoring piglet growth and extracting essential information for testing and developing new nutritional solutions. In pens with PigInsight technology, piglets are electronically tagged and the facility allows individual weight, feed intake and water consumption to be recorded on a daily basis.

     

    According to AB Neo's holistic vision of nutrition, the facilities are equipped to collect information on other environmental aspects that can influence the development of piglets, such as the internal and external temperature of the facilities, humidity and levels of CO2 and ammonia.

     

    Technology and analysis

    • Feed: The feed is distributed more quickly using a pneumatic feeding system, which prevents cross-contamination. By using this system, we can administer different nutritional solutions within the same room and, thus, analyse the optimal growth of the animals.

    • Feeding data: We can compare different piglets within the same room based on their feed consumption data in order to determine the effectiveness of different nutritional programmes.

    • Weighing data: all animals will be weighed a minimum of four times, recording progress.

    • 2 rooms are equipped with water meters at each pen to evaluate drink water consumption and to allow testing liquid solutions

    • PigInsight pens: we have 4 pens with a feeding system that allows individual recording of feed and water consumption of each piglet. These pens also have a scale in the drinking troughs, which allows the weight of each piglet to be recorded.

    Ad-hoc studies

    As part of our mission to offer customised nutritional plans, we offer our facilities to our clients, equipped with the most innovative technologies, to develop and test customised products and plans.

     

     

    Sustainability

    With its own solar panels, the Centre of Excellence is able to consume clean energy and achieve greater energy autonomy.

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