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Minerals in swine nutrition
Minerals constitute a small percentage of swine diets, but their importance cannot be over-emphasized. Functions of minerals are extremely diverse, serving a variety of structural, metabolic, and regulatory functions in all body components. The mineral nutrition of pigs must be precise because adding excess minerals to the diet can be costly and cause toxicity while not providing enough minerals can result in deficiency and reduce productivity.
Minerals are classified into macrominerals and microminerals according to the amount required in the diet. Macrominerals or major minerals need to be supplied in larger amounts in swine diets, as is the case of calcium, phosphorus, sodium, chlorine, magnesium, and potassium. Microminerals or trace minerals need to be supplied in smaller amounts in swine diets, as is the case of zinc, copper, iron, manganese, iodine, and selenium. Chromium is also sometimes added to sow and finisher diets to improve performance.
Grains and oilseeds commonly used in swine diets are sources of macrominerals and trace minerals. However, the intrinsic minerals are often found at low concentration and availability in feedstuffs is questionable. Consequently, it is essential to balance the diets using supplemental mineral sources to meet the requirements.
Trace elements may be generally defined as those which occur or are required at relatively low concentrations in living tissues. Classically, they have been subdivided into two categories: those which have been established as essential for life or health, and those for which proof of essentiality does not (yet) exist. Although the essentiality of some trace elements is still a matter for debate, it is widely accepted that the trace elements now considered to be essential or beneficial to...
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For sows to remain hyper-prolific throughout their lives and to maintain a high level of production it is important that their nutritional and metabolic needs are met at all stages of reproduction. It is known that nutrition, by influencing the endocrine and physiological status of the sow, affects both short- and long-term reproductive capacity. In terms of nutrition, major emphasis has been directed towards meeting energy, protein and amino acid...
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Introduction All animal tissues contain mineral elements in variable amounts and minerals are needed for efficient pig production. Most of the advances in understanding the nutritional significance of minerals were made during the second quarter of the 20th century and the majority of the studies focused on requirements to avoid deficiencies in the different phases of production. Based on available information the requirements of pigs for calcium (Ca) and phosphorus (P) are...
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Introduction Worldwide the pork industry is undergoing rapid change in the way that it is structured and in the way that it operates. While the world demand for pork is expected to increase, especially with improved standards of living in developing countries, competition for these markets will be high (Mullan and D’Souza, 2005). Many producers may well question what security there is for themselves in the industry, since there are often large fluctuations in profitability...
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