[Defended thesis] Raphaël Gauthier: Modeling of nutrient utilization and precision feeding of lactating sows

Modeling of nutrient utilization and precision feeding of lactating sows

My name is Raphaël Gauthier, and I'm hosted by two Rennes-based units, Inrae's Physiology, Environment and Genetics for Animals and Livestock Systems (PEGASE) UMR, and Inria's Large-scale Collaborative Data Mining (LACODAM) team.
I'm a graduate of the Ecole Supérieure d'Agricultures d'Angers and specialize in Animal Production. I have always been interested in digital technologies and massive data mining, as I am convinced that these tools can play an important role in the development of efficient and sustainable breeding systems.
This PhD follows on from a Master II internship on this subject at UMR Pégase. Research on growing pigs and pregnant sows has shown that precision feeding can improve feed costs and reduce the release of nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus into the environment, while less work has been carried out on lactating sows, even though lactation is a key physiological stage for piglet growth and sow longevity. The aim of my thesis work is to propose a better match between nutritional intake and the needs of each sow, in order to provide answers to the many challenges facing animal production.

• Starting date: November 2017
• University: Bretagne – Loire
• PhD school: EGAAL , Rennes
• Scientific field: Animal nutrition, Modeling, Predictive data mining
• Thesis management: Jean-Yves Dourmad, Inrae, Pegase
• Thesis supervisors: Christine Largouët, AgroCampus Ouest, Irisa-Inria
• Funding: #DigitAg – Inrae
• #DigitAg: Cofunded PhD – Axe 6 – Challenge 4

Keywords: Modeling, animal feed, suckling sows

Abstract: Because of the variability in sows milk production and appetite, the nutritional requirements differ largely between farms, between animals from the same farrowing batch, between successive batches due to seasonal variations, and between successive days during lactation, whereas in practice the same diet is generally fed to all sows in a herd. The availability of new technologies for high throughput phenotyping of individual sows and of their environment offers new opportunities for a renewed practical implementation of prediction models of nutritional requirements and performance. The integration of these prediction models in decision support tools incorporated in feeding equipment is thus an important issue for pig farmers and for the companies that develop this equipment. The objective of this thesis is to produce the knowledge required for a more integrated and dynamic approach of feeding lactating sows, by considering all the information available when deciding the optimal composition and amount of feed to be fed to each sow, each day, the ration being prepared by an automatic feeder. The scientific issues consist in a change of paradigm resulting from the possible access to real-time data specific to each animal and their environment as well as to historic data relative to the animal itself (e.g., previous lactation) to similar animals from the same farm or from similar farms. The research question deals with the real-time determination of nutritional requirements of lactating sows and its implementation in practice: “How can we decide in real-time the optimal composition and amount of feed to be fed to a lactating sow using in all the available information at this time?”

Jury compound:

-Rapporteur : Marie-Pierre Létourneau-Montmigny (Professeure à l’Université Laval, Québec, Canada)
– Rapporteur : Jean-François Mari (Professeur à l’Université de Lorraine, INRIA)
– Examinatrice : Marie Saint Dizier (Professeure à l’Université de Tours)
– Examinateur : Yannick Lecozler (Professeur à Institut Agro) (représentant de l’ED EGAAL)
– Examinatrice : Nathalie Quiniou (IFIP-Institut du porc, HDR)
– Examinateur : Sébastien Picault (INRAE, ONIRIS, HDR)
– Membre : Christine Largouët (Institut Agro, IRISA, INRIA, HDR, Co-directrice de thèse)
– Membre : Jean-Yves Dourmad (INRAE, HDR, directeur de thèse)

Download the thesis manuscript

Papers

Gauthier, R., Largouët, C., Gaillard, C., Cloutier, L., Guay, F., Dourmad, J.-Y., 2019. Dynamic modeling of nutrient use and individual requirements of lactating sows. J. Anim. Sci. https://doi.org/10.1093/jas/skz167 

Acts of conference

Gauthier, R., Largouët, C., Gaillard, C., Cloutier, L., Guay, F., Dourmad, J.-Y., 2019. Modélisation dynamique de l’utilisation des nutriments et des besoins individuels chez la truie en lactation. Journées Rech. Porcine. 51, 117–122 https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-02010788

Gauthier, R., Guay, F., Brossard, L., Largouët, C., Dourmad, J.-Y., 2018. Precision feeding of lactating sows: development of a decision support tool to handle variability, in: EAAP 2018 – 69th Annual Meeting of the European Federation of Animal Science, Book of Abstracts of the 69th Annual Meeting of the European Federation of Animal Science. Wageningen Academic Publishers, Dubrovnik, Croatia https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01949645

Contact:  jean-yves.dourmad [AT] inrae.fr

Social networks: ResearchGate – Twitter