Explore all the information on
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.
Researchers at the University of Alberta are recommending a combination of strategies for maximizing the feeding value of low quality grains.
As a result of unfavorable weather conditions much of the grain produced in 2004 was of particularly low quality, high in fibre and low in digestible energy.
University of Alberta Feed Industry Research Chair Dr. Ruurd Zijlstra says digestible energy contents can vary by as much as 20 percent.
"First of all we need to confirm that the barley...
Comments : 0
Recommendations: 0
The Head of the University of Plymouth's Food, Nutrition and Health Research Group is encouraging swine producers to consider increasing the bulk density of diets fed to gestating sows as a way of improving behavior.
Professor Peter Brooks says we've only become aware of the huge effect food has on behavior in the last 20 years, since we've started putting sows in stalls and feeding them limited amounts of food.
He suggests producers need to consider feed requirements as opposed to just...
Comments : 0
Recommendations: 0
Digestibility of amino acids in hydrolyzed feather meal, flash dried poultry protein, poultry meal, and meat and bone meal fed to broiler chickens and pigs
Suggested link
Some setbacks in pigs that are commonly attributed to wasting disease are much more likely to be stress-related or nutritional in origin, and diet choice is a key factor, says Pork Chain Solutions.
Any compromise in feeding in the critical post-weaning phase will continue to manifest itself through the pig's life. This means producers end up grappling with symptoms rather than cause - particularly where the pigs change sites or departments.
Under these circumstances it is more difficult...
Comments : 0
Recommendations: 0
Feeding field peas in swine diets could lower feed costs and lower the amount of phosphorous in manure.
According to South Dakota State University associate professor of monogastric nutrition Hans Stein, field pea research at SDSU looks at the nutritional value in swine diets.
"(One) way it will help producers is that they can lower the cost of feed by including field peas in their rations. Also, especially if you go to the west of here, producers have to drive quite a ways to get soybean...
Comments : 0
Recommendations: 0
Current market review and perspective of Florfenicol, Tilmicocin, vitamins and aminoacids
Suggested link
An Ottawa based nutrition consultant says it's not the food but rather the ingredients used to prepare that food that will make it healthy or unhealthy.
The US Food and Drug Administration recommends minimizing the intake of trans fats while Canada is looking at the prospects of banning foods that contain the compounds.
Independent Nutrition Consultant Helen Bishop-MacDonald says there's a perception that certain types of food are unhealthy when in fact it's the ingredients that...
Comments : 0
Recommendations: 0
Introduction
The pace of change in swine diet formulation over the past decade has been truly staggering. During the 1990’s, we successfully adopted a number of new technologies. The use of phase feeding is now almost universal. Diets are formulated on digestible rather than total amino acids, and the next step, to true digestible amino acids, appears to be just around the corner. We have a much better understanding of the relationship between whole body growth, protein/lean accretion...
Comments : 0
Recommendations: 0
Birthweight and condition of piglets at birth both have a major effect on their ability to survive. While many factors are influential - such as genetics, litter size, disease - nutrition plays a major role.
It is necessary, however, to distinguish between piglet size and condition to understand the function of nutrition, advises Mark White JSR Genetics' consultant veterinary surgeon.
The skeletal size of the piglets will be determined by the development of the placenta feeding them. If...
Comments : 0
Recommendations: 0
Researchers at the Prairie Swine Centre report hog producers can dramatically impact the quality their product by manipulating the nutritional aspects of diet.
Carcass quality refers to factors such as the proportion of lean and marbling in the carcass and pork quality refers to factors that influence consumer perceptions of the product including tastiness, juiciness and palatability.
Prairie Swine Centre President Dr. John Patience says, from a nutrition point of view, producers can...
Comments : 0
Recommendations: 0
An Ottawa based nutrition consultant is encouraging consumers to replace foods which contain unhealthy trans fats with foods made using naturally occurring animal fats.
The US Food and Drug Administration recommends minimizing the intake of trans fats while Canada is considering the prospects of following Denmark's lead in banning outright foods that contain the compounds.
Hydrogenated vegetable oils, like those used in the manufacture of vegetable oil shortenings and margarines, are...
Comments : 0
Recommendations: 0
Nutrient digestibility also improved with no negative effects on carcass quality. These results provide a strong indication that high-fat oat is superior to normal-fat oat as an energy source for swine.
In addition, there appears to be greater potential to utilize oat, regardless of fat level, in rations fed to growing-finishing pigs than is currently being achieved. The agronomic properties of high-fat oat are still being tested at the Crop Development Centre and they are not currently...
Comments : 0
Recommendations: 0
.jpg&w=3840&q=75)
The University of Saskatchewan says the availability of crops this year that normally would not be used as livestock feed will give swine producers a lot of flexibility when formulating rations.
The impact of a cold wet summer on grain and oilseed production was compounded by an August 20th frost that hit southeastern Saskatchewan and southwestern Manitoba.
Cereal crops were particularly hard hit. Prairie Feed Resource Centre Director Vernon Racz says frost damaged oilseeds, like...
Comments : 0
Recommendations: 0
The Pig Industry Board will soon carry out a study on how to use enzymes to help pigs digest fibre contained in stockfeed, a development expected to restore viability in a sector that has been facing a decline in production over the past two years. Pigs cannot digest the fibre in stockfeed, which is thrown away, and the new study seeks to cut down on costs by ensuring all the feed is consumed. Production has been declining in the industry over the past few years due to persistent disease...
Comments : 0
Recommendations: 0
Digestibility of amino acids in hydrolyzed feather meal, flash dried poultry protein, poultry meal, and meat and bone meal fed to broiler chickens and pigs
Suggested link
The intensive livestock production and the spreading of high productivity genetic stocks, have conditioned the common use of chemical substances known as “growth promoters”.
This kind of molecules are added at low rate to animal feed without changing considerably its composition. They speed up the growth and consequently increase the body size and weight rate. In order to be effective, growth promoters must keep their integrity during digestion process and must not be absorbed to perform...
Comments : 0
Recommendations: 0
We sincerelly thank the unconditional collaboration of the authors, and the kind disposition of the Mexican Association of Animal Nutrition (AMENA) , and the Latin American College of Animal Nutrition (CLANA) . Because of their support, Engormix.com brings closer the result of years of international research to the service of the animal producer. Summary (1) Livestock production is growing faster than other agricultural sub-sectors,...
Comments : 0
Recommendations: 0
