The Use of Fat in Swine Diets

What do fats do in swine diets, and how do they affect carcass quality? Also how much fat do you use for the various stages of swine production? Fat in the swine diet provides a lot of energy per unit of fat fed.(1) "Fat also increases weight gain, improves feed efficiency, improves feed quality, improves reproduction and reduces the heat produced by feed.(1) You want to feed saturated fats the last 4 weeks of finishing.(3) Vegetable oils ( primarily unsaturated fats ) can cause carcasses to have soft oily fat. (1+8) This can cause trouble with the quality and slicing of bacon, and the color, flavor and shelf life of muscle cuts. (1+3) Tallow ( mostly highly saturated fat ) on the other hand, will cause carcasses to have firm fat, which is desirable.(1) Firm fat is especially needed to slice bacon.(3+4) The amount of fat needed can have the following ranges: (A) Sow Lactation Feed: 3% up to 10%(5+9) (B) Early Wean Starter Feed, 8-12# piglets: 5%(9) (C) Starter-1 Feed, 12-15# piglets: 5%(9) (D) Starter-2 Feed, 15-25# piglets: 5%(9) (E) Starter-3 Feed, 25-50# piglets: 3%(9) (F) Late Stage Nursery Feed, 31-68# piglets: 3-4%(6) (G) Grower Feed: 3%(9), or 0-6%(7) (H) Finisher Feed 2%(9), or 0-6%(7) (I) Gestation Feed 2%(9), or up to 10%(6) (J) Boar Feed- 2%(10) up to %5 I believe? A List of sources of fat are as follows(10): Oils High in Saturated Fats: Coconut Oil, Tallow, Choice White Grease, Poultry fat, and Restaurant Grease. Oils High in Un-Saturated Fats: Canola Oil, Corn Oil, Soybean Oil, Herring Oil, Restaurant Oil, Poultry Fat, Menhaden Oil, Choice White Grease. Please note that some of the oils that are high in Saturated Fat, also have a lot of Un-Saturated Fat. In Summary it appears that 5% fat can be fed in most swine diets, with the determining factor being cost advantage or dis-advantage. The cost of fat needs to be compared to the cost of the energy received in corn. One other consideration is the need to reduce the heat increment in sows diets in the heat stress of Summer. References: (1) White, Heather M. and Mickey A. Latour Dept. of Animal Sciences, Purdue University (Jan. 04, 2008) Pig Site, Downloaded from the Internet on June 02, 2013 htttp://www.thepigsite.com/articles/2116/the-impact-of-added-diet-fat-oncarcass-fat-quality (2) Cromwell, Gary L. Professor, Swine Nutrition "Benefits of Supplemental Fat for Pigs" (3) University of Illinois (May30, 2013) "Adjust DDGS in Diets to Make Better Bacon" National Hog Farmer, Downloaded from the Internet on June 02, 2013 http://nationalhogfarmer.com/print/nutrition/adjust-ddgs-diets-make-better-bacon (4) Gaitlin, L.A., M.T.See, J.A.Hansen, D.Sutton and J.Odle (2002) "The effects of dietary fat sources, levels, and feeding intervals on pork fatty acid composition. J.Anim.Sci. 80:1606-1615 (5) Coffey, M.T. "Fat in Swine Diets" University of Florida Agricultural Extension (6) Akey Swine Newsletter (Oct.2003) (7) M.G. Young, M.D. Tokach, S.S. Dritz, R.D. Goodband and J.L.Nelssen "Effect of Added Fat on Performance of Growing.. Finishing Pigs in Commercial Conditions" (8) Azain, M.J. (2001) "Fat in Swine Nutrition" Pg. 95 in Swine Nutrition 2nd Ed. A.J. Lewis and L.L. Souther, Ed. CRC Press, Boca Raton (9) Joel Brendemuhl and Bob Meyer "Types of Swine Diets" University of Florida IFAS Extension http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/an036 Downloaded from the Internet on 6/17/2013 (10) Shannon, Marcia State Swine Nutrition Specialist, University of Missouri "Which fat source should I feed my pigs?" http://agebb.missouri.edu/commag/swine/pigfatsource.htm Downloaded from the Internet on 6/17/2013