Brad Lawrence

Pelleted feed does have some additional impacts at least for pigs that must be considered to optimize the value of the pelleting process. First, pelleted diets cause a loss of pH strata in the gut of the weaned pig and changes retention time in the stomach. This has implications for effectiveness of the stomach in barrier function against Salmonella, E. coli, etc and can lead to ulcer development. ...

As nutritionists we must remember the methionine cycle and transulfuration pathway to cysteine should be considered as just that, a cycle, dependent on or including choline, betaine and certain of the b vitamins. Failure to include any one component could result in the cycle not being optimized resulting in homocysteine buildup, limiting TSAA supply and an under-estimation of the TSAA requirement.

The data should be converted to TSAA:Lys ratio for each treatment giving 100% equivalency of methionine as added between the DL and methionine hydroxy analogue sources. This would allow the reader to assess the data in context of how the reader is formulating diets and whether the data was generated below requirement, at requirement, or above requirement as the reader defines the requirement of th ...