Lesaffre presents symposium on pig nutrition

French feed additive firm Lesaffre held its second international symposium about nutrition in Lille, northern France, on November 8-9. After a first symposium dedicated to ruminant in 2010, Lesaffre chose this year to focus on pig nutrition, specifically "the benefits of live yeast in pig feed or how nutrition helps to improve health."

The symposium attracted more than 200 nutritionists from feed firms and research centers. Presentations ranged from very fundamental data regarding microbial interface in the gastrointestinal tract of animals such as that presented by Andrew van Kessel from Saskatchewan University; immune links between digestive, pulmonary and mammary mucosal immune responses to improve protection against the pathogen, presented by Henri Salmon, Inra; to very practical day-to-day actions to be taken on farms either in Czech Republic or in France, as presented by Jan Bernardy, Czech Republic and Philippe Le Coz, France.

Some results connected with living yeasts Saccharomyces cerevisiae SC 47 had been presented either on planetary sessions or on posters. Its utilization had been shown to have positive effects on productive performance after weaning. Rosil Lizardo, Irta, Spain, recommended, for example, its utilization on high fiber piglet diets.