EFFICACY OF USING AMMONIUM CHLORIDE SUPPLEMENTS DURING CRISIS MANAGEMENT TO STOP GROWTH IN VARIOUS AGES OF PIGS

NON-TECHNICAL SUMMARY: With the current COVID19 pandemic, several pigslaughterplants have shut-down for 2 to 6 weeks. After re-opening the plants are now operating at less than full capacity. This reduction in pig slaughter has created multiple disruptions in the food supply chain, including management and economic complications for animal production and animal welfare. Commercial swine production and housing management systems are designed to operate with expectations that growing pigs are sequentially moved through the facilities in various age groups. Swine housing facilities are designed and economically optimized at maximum capacity with expectations of a constant output (pigs being shipped to market) to allow for a new influx of baby pigs as they grow and move into appropriately sized spaces. If a sudden stoppage of shipment to market occurs, the influx and movement of pigs must still occur as the pigs arecontinuouslyproduced and grown. A 4-month lead time (gestation interval) is required to reduce the production of new pigs to accommodate any altered housing needs of growing pigs. A sudden stoppage in the ability to ship market pigs, such as the current COVID19 pandemic, or future foreign animal disease outbreaks, creates a CRISIS, especially for producers.The backlog of pigs continues to be aCRISISissue for the US swine industry as current estimates have projected that a backlog of 4,000,000 pigs will not be alleviated until late summer at the earliest. Currently, some producers are forced to euthanize pigs as marketing options orother management strategies are not available. Social media and animal activists have exploited the negative consequences of forced euthanasia by contrasts with empty shelves in grocery stores. One approach to help alleviate the crisis is to provide a strategy that allows individual production units to attenuate pig growth at various production phases, thereby "holding" the pigs until shipments can be arranged.During the current COVID19 pandemic, sudden closures of pig slaughter plants for 2 to 6 weeks created multiple disruptions in food supplies, with major economic consequences for swine production operations. The RFA program "Rapid Response to Novel Coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) Impacts Across Food and Agricultural Systems" offers support for innovative solutions that are immediately implemented to alleviate these consequences. We propose to validate nutritional management strategies using ammonium chloride additions to water or feed, for immediate attenuation of pig growth. For the proposed strategies to be economically feasible, recovery must occur after ammonium chloride removal, and wholesome marketable products must be realized upon release of "stop-shipment" restrictions. Our goal in this project is to validate nutritional strategies to "hold" pigs for 4 to 6 weeks at essentially no growth, so that housing issues are reduced and pigs are allowed to recover to ensure availability of an accessible, safe, nutritious, and abundant food supply described in the Program Area Priority: Economic Security. In this project, we will define optimal ammonium chloride dosages for water and feed applications (Objective 1); compile empirical data at various pig weights during attenuated and recovery growth (Objective 2); and compose a dynamic economical model to assess implementation of ammonium chloride strategies (Objective 3). Outcomes will especially benefit economic security of small-scale producers, often first impacted during current or future "stop shipment orders".