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Swine nutrition
Pigs require a number of essential nutrients to meet their needs for maintenance, growth, reproduction, lactation, and other functions. However, factors such as genetic variation, environment, availability of nutrients in feedstuffs, disease levels, and other stressors may increase the needed level of some nutrients for optimal performance and reproduction.
Swine require six general classes of nutrients: water, carbohydrates, fats, protein (amino acids), minerals, and vitamins. Energy, although not a specific nutrient, is an important nutritional component and is primarily derived from the oxidation of carbohydrates and fats. In addition, amino acids (from protein) that exceed the animal’s requirements for maintenance and tissue protein synthesis provide energy when their carbon skeletons are oxidized. Antibiotics, chemotherapeutic agents, microbial supplements (prebiotics and probiotics), enzymes, and other feed additives are often added to swine diets to increase the rate and efficiency of gain, to improve digestibility, and for other purposes, but they are not considered nutrients.
Pigs require a more concentrated diet and should be fed a less-fibrous feed than cattle, sheep, or horses. As they grow, their nutritional requirements change and the diet should meet their needs in various phases of growth and stages of production.
Particle size refers to the average diameter of individual particles of feed, or simply the feed’s “fineness of grind.” Cereal grains provide the primary energy source for swine diets; therefore, you must be concerned not only with the composition of the grain but also with how it is processed. Because feed costs represent about 80 percent of the cash cost of producing swine, wise feed use is critical for your economic profitability. If you mix feed on the farm, you may improve...
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Nitrogen and phosphorus are the nutrients that are potential environmental pollutants when excessive quantities are applied to soils (Jongbloed and Lenis, 1998). These nutrients are excreted as a consequence of normal metabolic processes, but dietary excesses lead to increased manure excretion. Exogenous phytase (P T) as a dietary additive is widely accepted as an effective strategy for reducing manure P excretion by pigs. There have been conflicting reports as to the efficacy of PT for...
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Feeding dried chicory root to organic piglets can have a beneficial effect on their growth in the period immediately after weaning according to results from the Faculty of Agricultural Sciences, University of Aarhus. Chicory root has many beneficial effects on pigs. It has been shown that the root minimizes boar taint and now it also turns out that dried chicory root has a positive effect on piglet growth right after weaning. This has been shown in a series of studies with chicory root...
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A pig's delight is three square meals each day, according to a Swedish study on Tuesday showing swine raised in conventional indoor pens are healthier and grow fatter when fed this way. The researchers were looking to see whether they could alter feeding times to improve the welfare of indoor pigs raised for commercial slaughter and potentially give farmers ways to better maintain their livestock. Pigs kept outdoors eat in a more "natural" way by rooting for food...
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The pigs readily accepted and consumed the experimental diets. As indicated in Table 1, pigs achieved high growth rates on both treatments and no differences (P>0.10) were observed between the two dietary treatments. There were no effects of dietary treatments on any of the carcass characteristics that were evaluated, including meat and fat color scores. This was consistent with visual and subjective evaluation of carcass quality and meat color. In conclusion, no negative effects were...
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A total of 54 sows (PIC Line 1050) and their litters were used in this study to determine the effects of varying durations of creep feeding on the rate of pigs consuming creep feed (eaters) and pre-weaning performance. Two groups of sows were blocked according to parity and date of farrowing and allotted to three experimental treatments using a randomized complete block design. Creep feeding was initiated at d 7, 14, and 18 from birth for a duration of 13, 6, and 2 d of creep feeding. A creep...
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In the past couple of years, livestock producers have been saddled with skyrocketing grain prices and an influx of dried distillers grain with solubles, a product that is unique to each ethanol plant. Hans Stein, University of Illinois extension swine specialist, hopes to take some of the guesswork out of feeding DDGS to hogs. He's created a DDGS calculator, which allows producers to input costs for the various portions of the feed ration. Producers can then see the cost comparison for...
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Triticale is a grain developed by crossing durum wheat with rye in order to combine the grain quality, productivity, and disease resistance of wheat with the vigor, hardiness, and high lysine content of rye. Triticale is higher in protein and essential amino acids than corn, with 50% higher lysine content (Table 1). Lysine content is important because swine, like most simple-stomached (nonruminant) animals, do not require protein per se, but instead require specific levels of certain...
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Weaning is one of the most stressful times in a pig’s life. Not only does it mean big changes in social, thermal and physical environment, but it also means a huge change in diet form and composition. As a result, piglets often suffer from poor nutrient intakes and performance during this initial period following weaning, until they are able to make the necessary adjustments. To reduce stress during this period, many different techniques, including the development of special pre and...
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The current situation on the world feed market shows increasing feed prices. Not only milk by-products are steady increasing in price. Corn prices are rising too. Raw material prices will affect more and more the profitability of animal husbandry. In future attention must be concentrated on...
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If sows are heat-stressed their daily feed intake decreases to decrease heat production. The reduced feed intake can result in increased tissue loss from the sow, lower piglet weaning weights, and possibly higher mortality rates (Spencer et al., 2003). Early weaning and use of milk replacer may alleviate these effects (Ratliff et al., 2004), and milk replacer may also decrease piglet weight variation at weaning (Wolter et al., 2002). Spencer et al. (2003) researched the effects of...
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New generation E. Coli phytases, the latest in thermoprotection technology, enzyme solutions to optimise both piglet and grower/finisher performance and the use of enzymes in antibiotic growth promoter free nutrition were just some of the recent advances in enzyme technology reported by Dr Gary Partridge at the Pig Focus Asia conference, Bangkok, Thailand. Presenting a paper entitled "Profitable use of new enzymes", Dr Gary Partridge, Technical Services Director for...
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Distillers dried grains and bread or cookie waste products can be used for feed, nutritionist says. If soybean and corn-based feeds get too expensive, livestock producers can always turn to leftovers. Hans Stein, a University of Illinois Extension swine nutritionist who speaked at the Illinois Pork Expo at the Peoria Civic Center, said the leftovers he's talking about may be available at different locations around the state. Stein...
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Alberta Agriculture and Food says variable quality remains a key obstacle to increasing the inclusion of co-products from ethanol production in swine diets. With the increased emphasis on the use of grain based ethanol as fuel, distillers dried grains are becoming more readily available for inclusion in livestock rations. Pork research scientist Dr. Eduardo Beltranena says overheating or over drying of these co-products will significantly affect quality. "Lysine and...
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With the EU ban on the use of four antibiotic feed supplements and the phasing out of the quinoxaline derivatives carbadox and olaquindox in 1999, a substitute for the so-called growth promoters must be found for the entire field of animal husbandry. The situation is made all the more important in Germany by the continuing decline in prices on the pig market. In part as a consequence of this, many commercial piggeries want to move to a shorter three-week suckling period in order to produce...
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Biodiesel production yields coproducts that can be useful for a variety of agricultural operations. The director of the Iowa Pork Industry Center (IPIC) at Iowa State University, John Mabry, said a new fact sheet on one such coproduct, crude glycerol, provides answers to some commonly asked questions about its potential as a swine diet component. "’Crude Glycerol' is the second in the publication series called 'Feeding Bioenergy Coproducts to Swine,'" Mabry said. "The...
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It is imperative that we find new technologies to reduce the amount of feed resources needed to produce pork. The need is made more acute by the growing societal concern about routine use of antibiotics in livestock feeds. If we are to produce pork without the routine use of antibiotics in feed, we must change some things. The most important changes will be in production systems, sanitation and biosecurity. However, these changes should be supplemented with targeted methods for influencing the...
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Swine research funded in part by the Agricultural Research Service (ARS) indicates that inulin—a complex carbohydrate found in many plants worldwide—may help people absorb more iron from fruits, vegetables and grains. This finding by ARS plant physiologist Ross Welch and his colleagues could provide key support in the worldwide fight against iron deficiency. Iron is needed to form hemoglobin, which transports oxygen in the blood. Welch, who works at the U.S. Plant, Soil...
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Researchers with the University of Alberta are encouraging swine producers include as much of the byproducts of ethanol production in as possible when formulating rations but to keep a close watch on the quality of those ingredients. In an effort to curb the rising cost of feed, livestock producers in western Canada have made significant adjustments to their ration formulations, including increasing the amount of distillers dried grains, a coproduct of ethanol production, in their...
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Approximately two billion tonnes of cereal grains and 140 million tonnes of legumes and oilseeds are produced annually throughout the world. This production is associated with an estimated 230 million tonnes of fibrous material as part of a variety of by-products. In addition, the ‘dietary fibre’ contained within cereals and legumes is used inefficiently by the intensive livestock industries. At present, enzyme supplements are used extensively in wheatand barley-based diets for poultry,...
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