Arabinoxylans are the predominant fiber component in cereal grains and cereal co-products. They have a backbone of β-(1− 4) linked xylose units with side chains of arabinose, glucuronic acid, acetyl, and phenolic acids. Xylanase hydrolyzes the β-(1− 4) glycosidic bonds between xylose units in the backbone and releases a mixture of xylose and xylo-oligosaccharides that can be either absorbed or fermented by pigs. Previous data indicate that xylanase increased the degradation of dietary fiber and increased energy digestibility in diets for growing pigs and lactating sows. Xylo-oligosaccharides improve growth performance of nursery pigs because they serve as prebiotics that modulate gut microbiota. A stimbiotic (i.e., xylanase in combination with xylo-oligosaccharides) may improve growth performance of weanling pigs to a greater extent than either additive alone by shifting the intestinal microbiome to favor fiber fermentation. However, there are no data on possible effects of xylanase in sows diets on growth performance and intestinal health of the offspring or on the impact of the stimbiotic on digestibility of nutrients when fed to nursery pigs. Therefore, an experiment was conducted to test the hypothesis that xylanase or a stimbiotic improves growth performance and the apparent total tract digestibility (ATTD) of dry matter (DM), gross energy (GE), and total dietary fiber (TDF), and the concentration of digestible energy (DE) of diets for weanling pigs, but that the effect is greater in offspring of sows fed xylanase in lactation than in offspring of sows not fed xylanase.

Fanelli, Natalia S., Leidy J. Torres-Mendoza, Jerubella J. Abelilla, and Hans H. Stein. 2023. Chemical composition of banana meal and rice bran from Australia or South-East Asia. Anim Biosci, Vol. 36, No. 10:1568-1577. doi.org/10.5713/ab.23.0071. Link to full text.

Lee. S. A., and H. H. Stein. 2023. Pelleting of diets for pigs improves feed efficiency. National Hog Farmer, On-line edition. September 27, 2023.

Lagos, L. V., J. C. Woodworth, S. W. Kim, and H. H. Stein. 2023. Short communication: Commercial diets for pigs in the United States contain more calcium than formulated. J. Anim. Sci.101:1-5. doi.org/10.1093/jas/skad102. Link to full text.

High protein corn protein (HPCP) is a corn co-product derived from the ethanol industry that contains between 40 and 50% crude protein, and therefore, may be used in diets for pigs as a source of amino acids (AA). However, such diets will contain more than twice as much Leu as recommended and there is a negative relationship between dietary Leu and brain synthesis of serotonin, which results in reduced feed intake of pigs fed diets containing excess Leu. There is also a reduced protein synthesis because of increased Val and Ile metabolism due to excess dietary Leu. As a consequence, pigs often have reduced growth performance if fed diets with high concentrations of HPCP. However, it may be possible to counteract the negative effects of the high Leu concentrations in corn co-products by adding crystalline sources of Trp, Val, and Ile to the diets and it may, therefore, be possible that HPCP can be used in diets without influencing growth performance or intestinal health of weanling pigs. Therefore, the hypothesis that HPCP may be used as the primary source of AA in diets for weanling pigs if diets are fortified with crystalline AA was tested. 

Bailey, Hannah M., Natalia S. Fanelli, and Hans H. Stein. 2023. Effect of heat treatment on protein quality of rapeseed protein isolate compared with non-heated rapeseed isolate, soy and whey protein isolates, and rice and pea protein concentrates. J. Sci. Food Agric. 2023. doi: 10.1002/jsfa.12809. Link to full text.

Ibagon, Jimena A., Su A Lee, and Hans H. Stein. 2023. Metabolizable energy and apparent total tract digestibility of energy and nutrients differ among samples of sunflower meal and sunflower expellers fed to growing pigs. Journal of Animal Science, 101, 1–8. doi.org/10.1093/jas/skad117. Link to full text.

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.

Forouzandeh, Asal, Simon Bo Lassen, Julius Emil Brinck, Yan-Yan Zhou, Jiaojiao Zhu, David Solà-Oriol, Alessandra Monteiro f, Xiuli Hao, Jian-Qiang Su, Hans H. Stein, J. Francisco Pérez, Kristian K. Brandt. 2023. Limited impacts of high doses of dietary copper on the gut bacterial metal resistome explain negligible co-selection of antibiotic resistance. Science of the Total Environment 889 (2023) 164183. doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.164183.