Feeding changes open opportunities

Sep 28, 2023

There’s a strong relationship between health and growth in a calf’s early life and that animal’s lifetime production. That means what happens to a calf in its first few hours and days is extremely critical, particularly concerning what it’s fed.

What, how much and when to feed calves is changing and opens new opportunities for producers to impact the long-term health, growth and productivity of their animals, said Michael Steele, a professor in the University of Guelph-Department of Animal Biosciences.

“You can mold the calf when it’s born,” he said. “We call this developmental plasticity, which is strong early in life and goes down as time goes on.”

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Video: ASF Control Lessons - Dr. Mary-Louise Penrith

In this episode of The Swine it Podcast Show Canada, Dr. Mary-Louise Penrith, Extraordinary Professor at the University of Pretoria, shares what decades of work have revealed about ASF control. She explains why vaccine development remains difficult, how human activity and food waste drive disease spread, why resistant pig populations are an important research area, and how strict biosecurity with the right disinfectants can help to stop transmission. Listen now on all major platforms!

"It's really a very human-driven disease because people move pigs, decide how they're raised, how they're sold, and good biosecurity can do anything to ensure control."

Meet the guest: Dr. Mary-Louise Penrith / mary-louise-penrith-2b12bb42 is an Extraordinary Professor in the Department of Veterinary Tropical Diseases at the University of Pretoria, South Africa. A veterinarian and internationally recognized researcher, she has dedicated decades to African swine fever epidemiology, control, and pig health, supporting FAO and WOAH initiatives while advancing research and education. Listen to Dr. Mary-Louise Penrith on the Swine Health Blackbelt Podcast, available on all major platforms.