Article published the June 10, 2020
Introduction
Sodium and chloride are involved in several of the body’s processes, such as the sodium potassium pump and osmotic regulation. Traditionally, the most common source of Na and Cl in swine diets is added salt. Hagsten et al. noted improvements in ADG and F/G when at least 0.10% of salt was added to corn-soybean meal diets for pigs from 40 to 200 lb. However, Alcantara et al. repo ...
Article published the June 9, 2020
Introduction
The implementation and monitoring of quality control, quality assurance systems, and their standard operating procedures in feed mill operations are integral in assessing the overall success and profitability of livestock operations. The proper sampling of finished feed and its subsequent analysis is a common standard operating procedure that is used for most swine nutrition studies ...
Article published the June 2, 2020
Introduction
Pelleting is a feed processing method shown to improve handling and transportation characteristics of feeds, while reducing ingredient segregation during handling, decreasing dust levels, and improving feed utilization in swine. The use of flat die technology (cold pelleting) has received little attention at this point compared to thermal pelleting for commercial feed applications. I ...
Participation in Forum on May 20, 2020
First on the trace minerals: commercial diets contain margins of safety for trace minerals and vitamins. The extra trace minerals had increased over time. Data started being published suggesting that the excess trace minerals may be negative for productivity along with being a potential environmental concern. Thus, the levels have been reducing to be closer to requirements. You are correct that or ...
Article published the March 9, 2020
Introduction
Mycotoxins are naturally-produced hazards that result from molds that can grow on cereal grains and other commodities, such as peanuts, cottonseed, and soybeans. The primary species causing mycotoxins are aspergillus (aflatoxin and ochratoxin) and fusarium (fumonisins and zearalenone) molds. Very small quantities of mycotoxins may cause illness in swine or impact production efficienc ...
Article published the June 13, 2018
Introduction
Research has shown that adding high levels of copper (primarily from CuSO4 ) to diets fed to nursery pigs will result in improved growth performance. It is thought that copper acts as an antimicrobial-like feed additive in the gut of the young pig, which influences the microflora in the intestine and leads to improvements in growth performance. Copper also has been shown to improve A ...
Article published the March 1, 2018
Introduction
Nursery pigs often experience a lag in growth performance when transitioning from sows’ milk to dry feed during weaning. The lag is caused by several factors, including the dietary and environmental stresses associated with weaning. This post-weaning challenge can be associated with suppressed performance, diarrhea, and other intestinal health problems. While compensatory gain ...
Article published the February 22, 2018
Introduction
The use of standardized ileal digestible (SID) AA has become a standard approach in diet formulation as it helps to accurately meet a pig’s requirement, and enhance the ingredient utilization. Lysine is the first limiting AA in corn and soybean meal diets for swine. In addition, Lys is used to estimate the requirement of other essential AA; which are expressed as a ratio relati ...
Article published the February 15, 2018
Introduction
In order to lower feed costs, crystalline AA are used routinely in swine diets to replace a portion of the soybean meal. The AA that are currently available to add to swine diets include lysine, threonine, methionine, tryptophan, and valine. The increased availability of crystalline AA sources has created the opportunity to formulate grain-based diets to the fifth or sixth limiting A ...
Article published the February 5, 2018
Introduction
The conventional management in the swine industry is for weaning to start the sow’s next reproductive cycle. However, breeding sows during lactation has been proposed as an alternative that may increase sow productivity. If sows conceive while lactating, farrowing interval and nonproductive days may be decreased, increasing the litters per sow per year. Early attempts to breed ...