Corn is the primary grain used in pig diets and provides most energy to the diets. Because energy is the most expensive component in diet formulation, it is critical to accurately determine energy concentrations in corn. Use of exogenous phytase in pig diets has been a standard and most phytase is expected to generate extra-phosphoric effects that result in increases in minerals, amino acid, or energy digestibility. Therefore, phytase companies have provided customers with matrix values that can be used for down specs of energy and nutrients in diet formulation. It is thus important to confirm if dietary phytase releases energy and other nutrients as suggested before using them. To our knowledge, however, there is no information on how much phytase can increase net energy (NE) in corn when fed to group-housed pigs. Therefore, the objective of this experiment was to test the hypothesis that addition of microbial phytase to a corn-based diet increased the apparent total tract digestibility (ATTD) of gross energy (GE) and concentration of NE by group-housed growing pigs.

Lee, S. A., D. A. Rodriguez, and H. H. Stein. 2022 Microbial phytase impact on digestibility energy in growing pigs.  National Hog Farmer, On-line edition, Dec. 30, 2022.

Lee, S. A., D. A. Rodriguez, and H. H. Stein. 2022. Water source placement does not impact energy, nutrient utilization. National Hog Farmer, On-line edition, Oct. 12, 2022.

Depending on how facility allows pigs to drink water, considerable amounts of feeds can be wasted, which may affect digestibility of nutrients by pigs. Therefore, the objective of this experiment was to test the hypothesis that different watering options affect concentration of net energy (NE) in a corn-soybean meal diet fed to growing pigs.

Rodriguez, Diego A.,  Su A Lee, and Hans H. Stein. 2021. Growth performance and carcass quality are not different between pigs fed diets containing cold-fermented low-oil DDGS and pigs fed conventional DDGS, but pelleting improves gain to feed ratio regardless of source of DDGS. Journal of Animal Science, 2021, Vol. 99, No. 8, 1–8. doi:10.1093/jas/skab129.

Soybean meal (SBM) is the major source of amino acids in diets for swine throughout the world. However, in addition to providing indispensable amino acids to diets, SBM also provides energy to the diets. Diets are often formulated based on the net energy (NE) in each individual ingredient using a linear programming computer software. Therefore, the NE for each ingredient is important for the value the ingredient is assigned in the formulation. However, the NE for SBM that is used by most feed formulators was generated many years ago, but results of recent research indicate that current U.S. SBM may provide more NE than previously estimated, which potentially results in an increased estimation of the value of SBM in diets for pigs. There is, therefore, a need for confirming or updating the NE value for SBM. As a consequence, the objective of this experiment was to test the hypothesis that the NE in U.S. SBM fed to modern genotypes of pigs is greater than the value that is currently used in feed formulation.

Rodriguez, Diego A., Su A Lee, María R. C. de Godoy, and Hans H. Stein. 2020. Extrusion of soybean hulls does not increase digestibility of amino acids or concentrations of digestible and metabolizable energy when fed to growing pigs. Transl. Anim. Sci. 2020.4:1-9. doi: 10.1093/tas/txaa169. Link to full text.

Rodriguez, Diego A., Su A Lee, and Hans H. Stein. 2020. Digestibility of amino acids, but not fiber, fat, or energy, is greater in cold-fermented, low-oil distillers dried grains with solubles (DDGS) compared with conventional DDGS fed to growing pigs. Journal of Animal Science, 2020, Vol. 98, No. 10, 1–8. doi:10.1093/jas/skaa297.

Rodriguez, Diego A., Su A. Lee, Cassandra K. Jones, John K. Htoo, Hans H. Stein. 2020. Digestibility of amino acids, fiber, and energy by growing pigs, and concentrations of digestible and metabolizable energy in yellow dent corn, hard red winter wheat, and sorghum may be influenced by extrusion. Animal Feed Science and Technology 268 (2020) 114602. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.anifeedsci.2020.114602.