Article published the March 2, 2021
Introduction
The inclusion of crystalline amino acids in swine diets is an effective strategy to not only meet specific nutritional requirements, but also reduce diet cost and environmental impact. Typically, amino acids are expressed in ratio to lysine (Lys) for diet formulation process. Thus, it is important to evaluate essential amino acids in a Lys deficient scenario to appropriately identify ...
Article published the March 2, 2021
Introduction
A successful gestation feeding program is one that yields a large, vigorous litter of pigs and a healthy sow equipped with adequate mammary development and body nutrient stores to produce large quantities of milk for the suckling litter. Variations in body size, productivity, and environmental conditions dictate different daily concentrations of nutrients to satisfy the sow’s r ...
Article published the February 5, 2021
Introduction
Voluntary feed intake is often low and variable directly after weaning. As a result, research has focused on how nutritional stressors can be overcome to stimulate feed intake and subsequently increase performance (Pluske et al., 1997). Thus, highly palatable and nutrient dense protein sources are commonly added to nursery diets to encourage feed intake. Traditionally, this has been ...
Article published the January 7, 2021
Introduction
Feed manufacturing equipment has been shown to be a potential source of porcine epidemic diarrhea virus (PEDV) cross contamination. Wet decontamination has been found to be the most effective method for decontaminating the surface of feed mill equipment. However, this is not practical in most current commercial feed production settings. Methods to mitigate the risk of PEDV transmissi ...
Article published the January 6, 2021
Introduction
Growth promotional feed additives continue to be an area of emphasis for evaluation, especially in nursery pig diets. One of the classes of feed additives that has gained significant interest is probiotics. Probiotics can be defined as live microorganisms which, when administered in adequate amounts, confer a health benefit on the host (FAO/ WHO, 2001).6 Mechanistically, the modes of ...
Article published the December 4, 2020
Introduction
Glutamine is considered a non-essential amino acid for young pigs and is important for optimum health and function of the enterocytes in the small intestine. Glutamate is an important compound in cellular metabolism and is an energy source for the enterocytes in the intestine. Dietary glutamate may be limiting in newly-weaned pigs due to rapid turnover and replacement of mucosal cell ...
Article published the September 11, 2020
Introduction
Soybean meal is one of the most readily available and economical protein sources commonly fed to pigs. Due to a number of anti-nutritional factors, its inclusion in newly weaned pig diets has been limited. Thus, specialty animal proteins, such as animal plasma, blood cells, or fish meal have been commonly added as highly digestible amino acid sources in starter diets. In recent years ...
Article published the September 11, 2020
Introduction
The U.S. swine industry is facing a significant change in production practices regarding gestation sow housing. Many pork producers across the United States are shifting from housing gestating sows in individual stalls to a group housing system. This is driven by animal welfare concerns, state legislatures, and food companies’ demands.
Electronic sow feeding (ESF) is one optio ...
Article published the September 9, 2020
Introduction
Oligosaccharides are a group of carbohydrate polymers containing 3 to 10 simple sugars that can be fed to pigs as prebiotics. Mannan- (Davis et al., 2002;3 Rozeboom et al., 20054 ), chito- (Liu et al., 20085 ), and fructo-oligosaccharides (Gebbink et al., 19996 ), have been shown to improve growth performance in young pigs. Possible mechanisms by which oligosaccharides benefit growth ...
Article published the August 26, 2020
Introduction
Lysine is the first limiting amino acid in corn-soybean meal-based swine diets. In order to maximize efficiency in all stages of production, the requirement of Lys needs to be determined. In lactation diets, nutrients need to be supplied to support both sow maintenance and litter growth. Inadequate nutrient intake during lactation can cause the sow to be catabolic and cause increased ...