With the prices of cereal grains rising, opportunities to reduce feed costs by using alternative ingredients are being explored. One source of alternative feed ingredients is co-products from the use of corn in the production of food for humans. Only limited published information is available on the digestibility of phosphorus in corn co-products derived from the human food industry.

Phosphorus from plant sources is often bound to phytate, which decreases the availability of the phosphorus to the pigs because pigs do not produce the enzyme phytase. The addition of microbial phytase to diets containing corn and soybean meal increases phosphorus digestibility in these ingredients. However, no data have been published on the effect of adding phytase to diets containing hominy feed,  bakery meal, corn gluten meal, corn gluten feed, or corn germ meal.

Therefore, an experiment was performed to determine the apparent (ATTD) and standardized (STTD) total tract digestibility of phosphorus in hominy feed, bakery meal, corn gluten meal, corn gluten feed, and corn germ meal, and to compare these values to the values obtained for corn and DDGS. The effect of the addition of microbial phytase to the diets on the digestibility of phosphorus in the experimental ingredients was also measured.

Due to the increasing demand for protein for livestock feeding, the interest in using canola meal in diets fed to swine is increasing. Canola meal is a product of the rapeseed plant, an abundant oilseed crop grown in Canada, the Northern United States, and parts of Europe. Recently, new varieties of canola that contain more protein and less fiber than conventional canola have been selected. The de-oiled meals of these varieties have a concentration of crude protein that is close to that of de-hulled soybean meal.

It has been speculated that changes in the traditional pre-press solvent extraction oil removal procedure may improve the quality of canola meal. The traditional procedure involves use of heat to desolventise the de-oiled meal, but a new procedure allows for production of canola meal using a low-temperature procedure.

There is no information about the digestibility of energy in high protein canola meal. There also is no data comparing the digestibility of energy in canola meal processed at low temperatures versus high temperatures. Therefore, an experiment was conducted to compare the concentrations of digestible energy (DE) and metabolizable energy (ME) in high protein, high-temperature-processed, low-temperature-processed, and commercial canola meals, and to compare these values with the DE and ME in corn and soybean meal.

Almeida, F. N., L. I. Chiba, S. D. Brotzge, R. L. Payne, and H. H. Stein. 2012. Amino acid digestibility in hydrolyzed feather meal fed to pigs. J. Anim. Sci. 90(E-Suppl. 3):469 (Abstr.) Link to abstract (.pdf)

Cromwell, G. L., M. J. Azain, O. Adeola, S. K. Baidoo, S. D. Carter, T. D. Crenshaw, G. M. Hill, P. S. Miller, J. F. Patience, M. C. Shannon, and H. H. Stein. 2012. Withdrawal patterns of DDGS on performance, belly firmness, and fatty acids in pigs—A cooperative study. J. Anim. Sci. 90(E-Suppl. 3):467-468 (Abstr.) Link to abstract (.pdf)

Rojas, O. J. and H. H. Stein. 2012. Energy, phosphorus, and amino acid digestibility in Lemna protein concentrate, fish meal, and soybean meal fed to weanling pigs. J. Anim. Sci. 90(E-Suppl. 3):467 (Abstr.) Link to abstract (.pdf)

González-Vega, J. C., C. L. Walk, and H. H. Stein. 2012. Determination of endogenous intestinal losses of Ca and digestibility of Ca in canola meal fed to growing pigs. J. Anim. Sci. 90(E-Suppl. 3):190 (Abstr.) Link to abstract (.pdf)

Lee, J. W. and H. H. Stein. 2012. Inclusion of corn germ and corn distillers dried grains with solubles in diets fed to growing-finishing pigs. J. Anim. Sci. 90(E-Suppl. 2):110 (Abstr.) Link to abstract (.pdf)

Cervantes-Pahm, S. K. and H. H. Stein. 2012. Nutritional value of carbohydrate sources fed to pigs. J. Anim. Sci. 90(E-Suppl. 2):50 (Abstr.) Link to abstract (.pdf)

Soybean meal is a high quality source of protein for swine diets. Due to the growth in global production of pigs and poultry, demand for soybeans is increasing rapidly, outpacing production. Therefore, other sources of plant protein are sometimes used in diets to supply indispensable AA to the animals.

The most abundant oilseeds produced in the world, aside from soybeans, are cottonseed, canola seed (rapeseed), and sunflower seed. These oilseeds may be fed as de-oiled meals, or the full fat seeds can be fed to increase the energy concentration of the diet.

There are no recent data on energy digestibility in canola, cotton, and sunflower products. Therefore, an experiment was conducted to measure the digestible energy (DE) and metabolizable energy (ME) in canola seeds (CS), canola meal (CM), cottonseed meal (CSM), sunflower seeds (SFS), sunflower meal (SFM), and dehulled sunflower meal (SFM-DH), and to compare these values to the DE and ME in soybean meal (SBM).