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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.
The increase in feed energy costs and increased availability of co-products from the bio-fuel and food industry represent both challenges and opportunities for the pork industry. An approach that is explored in swine nutrition research at the University of Guelph is to treat co-products with enzymes and microbes at source, and to feed (condensed) liquid co-product directly to pigs using computerized liquid feeding systems. In general and when used at 15% or less of diet dry matter...
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SUMMARY The removal of antibiotic growth promoters from farm animal feeds has led to renewed interest in the use of live microbial cultures or direct fed microbials also called probiotics as a replacement. A new approach to propagate probiotic bacteria, on-farm, to induce viable...
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The pig industry is undergoing rapid change and is faced with many challenges, such as a deterioration in pig health status in many countries and a growing concern by the community about how we care for animals and the environment. Minerals play an important role because not only are they essential for growth and reproduction, but their presence also influences the quality of the end product and ultimately human health. However, published recommendations on the inclusion rate of trace...
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As little as 25 years ago, it was relatively easy to feed replacement females in a commercial piggery. Gilts could be reared to first service on a normal finisher (or baconer) diet and only a single diet was fed to dry sows and lactating sows. Whilst the dry sow diet has not changed dramatically over the last twenty years, rearing the modern gilt and catering for the demand on the lactating sow has required the development of special feeds for these animals. The challenge in feeding...
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Research over the last 30 years has demonstrated that the absorption of amino acids in the form of oligopeptides (principally di- to tri-peptides) constitutes the most quantitatively important form of amino acid uptake from digesta by gut epithelia (Matthews and Adibi, 1976; Steinhardt and Adibi, 1986; Matthews, 1991; Seal and Parker 1991; Webb et al., 1992; Koeln et al., 1993; Gardner, 1994) and physiologically important amounts from glomerular filtrate by renal epithelia (Daniel et al.,...
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Feed conversion is one of the most important factors to economically optimize animal production. Since feed commodity prices have recently been increasing, Feed Conversion Rate (FCR) must be optimized. Biomin® P.E.P. in animals’ diets increases nutrient...
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Large differences in sow productivity exist from one management system to another. These variations are considerably impacted by the distinctive feed and feeding programs in a sow’s reproductive lifetime. Proper feeding during gestation conditions the sow and enables her to manage feed intake during lactation resulting in a greater number of heavier piglets weaned. Adequate feed intake during lactation along with proper health care, will not only benefit the litter currently on the sow, but...
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VevoVitall®, a relatively new feed additive to the market contains 99.9% of food quality, purified benzoic acid. VevoVitall® has been registered as an acidifier for use in growing and finishing pig feeds since May 2003. Recently, the European Union granted a brand specific approval for VevoVitall®, now providing additional authorisation for the use of VevoVitall® as a zootechnical additive in feeds for piglets from weaning to 25kg liveweight. The authorised inclusion of...
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Aim of the Trial This trial was carried out to assess the efficacy of phytogenics (Biomin® P.E.P.) in comparison to Antibiotic Growth Promoters (AGPs) in weaned piglets. Trial Design 192 weanling pigs (PIC) with an average age of 22 day and an average initial body weight (BW) of 5.9 kg were randomly assigned...
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Two 28-day balance experiments were conducted to evaluate mineral excretion by nursery pigs fed lower concentrations of organic copper (Cu) or zinc (Zn) sources (Bioplex Cu or Zn, Alltech Inc., Nicholasville, KY) compared to pharmacological concentrations of inorganic Cu or Zn sources, respectively. Twenty crossbred barrows averaging 11.2 kg were placed in individual pens in each experiment. For Experiment 1, the four dietary treatments were: (1) Basal diet, (2) Basal + 50 ppm Cu...
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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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Toward the end of last century a major lifestyle trend emerged in the developing nations emphasizing wellness and disease prevention in the human population rather than treatment therapies. This focus is expected to strengthen, rather than diminish, as the relatively affluent and well-educated ‘baby boomers’ of the 1950s and 1960s progressively reach middle age and begin to contemplate their retirement years. It has been calculated that in the US...
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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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Introduction International consumer groups and legislators are demanding the reduction in use of antimicrobial growth promoters in livestock feeds. It is thought that the use of antibiotics in animal feed increases the number of antibiotic resistant bacteria in the animal and the environment and makes human diseases more difficult to treat (Corpet, 1988; Langlois et al., 1978 a,b). Because of these concerns and legislation against sub-therapeutic antibiotic use in livestock,...
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Introduction Although significant investment is applied to food safety, due to the fact that is of fundamental importance to the economy, food industry and finally to the general consumer, the incidence of foodborne disease is still unacceptably high according to the...
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Introduction The progress of the pig industry in the last ten years has been extraordinary, mostly due to necessity to ensure survival. The pig producer in the year 2000 and beyond must be adaptable to the ever-changing factors affecting production as well as realising that today we are not merely producing pigs, but meat for human consumption. This paradigm shift in understanding of the output of our business is essential in understanding hat is required to be successful for...
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What is DDGS? Corn distiller’s dried grains with solubles (DDGS) is a co-product produced by dry mill ethanol plants as a result of fermenting corn starch to produce fuel ethanol and carbon dioxide. Each bushel of corn (25.4 kg) fermented in a dry mill ethanol plant will produce approximately 10.2 liters of ethanol, 8.2 kg of carbon dioxide, and 8.2 kg of DDGS. Yellow dent corn is most commonly used to produce ethanol and DDGS because it is an excellent source of readily...
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A scientist with the University of Alberta is cautioning against the over inclusion of dried distillers grain in swine rations. Expanded wheat based ethanol production in western Canada is resulting in higher volumes of wheat dried distillers grain available as feed.
Because starch is removed during fermentation, dried distillers grains contain concentrations of other nutrients such as fibre, fat and protein.
University of Alberta feed industry research chair Dr. Ruurd Zijlstra notes...
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