Baker, K. M., Y. Liu, and H. H. Stein. 2014. Nutritional value of soybean meal produced from high protein, low oligosaccharide, or conventional varieties of soybeans and fed to weanling pigs. Anim. Feed Sci. Technol. 188:64-73. Link to full text (.pdf)

By Dr. Hans H. Stein

December, 2013

On December 11, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced a plan to limit the use of certain antimicrobials in food animals. The drugs at issue are those considered medically important in humans, including tetracyclines, penicillins and macrolides. The FDA's plan asks drug makers to voluntarily change the labels on their medically important antimicrobials to remove growth promotion as an indication. By law, drugs administered in animal feed cannot be used in a way inconsistent with their labeling, so this would effectively prohibit usage of antimicrobials as growth promoters. The FDA has also asked drug companies to revoke the targeted antimicrobials' over-the-counter status, so that a veterinarian's prescription would be required to use these medications for the purpose of disease prevention or treatment.

Cervantes-Pahm, S., B. K. Knapp, B. G. Kim, Y. Liu, C. M. Parsons, G. C. Fahey, and H. H. Stein. 2013. Comparison of two different in vivo models and an in vitro model for caloric determination of four novel fiber ingredients. J. Agric. Food Chem. 61:12374-12379. Link to full text (.pdf)

Rodriguez, D. A., R. C. Sulabo, J. C. González-Vega, and H. H. Stein. 2013. Energy concentration and phosphorus digestibility in canola, cottonseed, and sunflower products fed to growing pigs. Can. J. Anim. Sci. 93:493-503. Link to full text (.pdf)

Sulabo, R. C., L. I. Chiba, F. N. Almeida, S. D. Brotzge, R. L. Payne, and H. H. Stein. 2013. Amino acid and phosphorus digestibility and concentration of digestible and metabolizable energy in hydrolyzed feather meal fed to growing pigs. J. Anim. Sci. 91:5829-5837. Link to full text (.pdf)

Almeida, F. N. and H. H. Stein. 2013. Efeitos do melhoramento genético e técnicas de processamento na utilização do farelo de soja por suínos. "Americas: International Conference on Soybean Utilization", Oct 22-24, 2013, Bento Gonçalves, RS, Brazil. Link to full text (.pdf)

Almeida, F. N., J. K. Htoo, J. Thomson, and H. H. Stein. 2013. Amino acid digestibility in camelina products fed to growing pigs. Can. J. Anim. Sci. 93:335-343. Link to full text (.pdf)

Rojas, O. J., and H. H. Stein. 2013. Effects of reducing the particle size of corn on the digestibility of energy and nutrients and growth performance and carcass characteristics of growing-finishing pigs. Proceedings of the 2013 Allen D. Leman Swine conference, St. Paul, Minnesota, September 14-17, 2013. Link to full text (.pdf)

Grinding of feedstuffs to small particle sizes is a low-cost way to increase their energy and nutrient digestibility. Currently, nutritionists recommend feeding corn ground to an average particle size of 650 to 700 µm. However, it may be advisable to formulate diets containing corn ground to smaller particle sizes due to the greater metabolizable energy (ME) values of these diets. A previous experiment conducted by Rojas and Stein at the University of Illinois demonstrated that when diets are formulated to contain the same amount of metabolizable energy, feeding diets containing corn ground to different sizes to weanling pigs did not have a negative effect on growth performance.

An experiment was conducted to test the hypothesis that when diets are not adjusted to contain equivalent amounts of metabolizable energy, weanling pigs fed diets containing corn ground to smaller particles sizes will have an improved gain to feed ratio relative to pigs fed corn containing corn ground to larger particle sizes.