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 human food industries. However, little information has been published on the digestibility of energy in these ingredients. Therefore, an experiment was conducted to determine the concentrations of digestible and metabolizable in hominy feed, bakery meal, corn gluten meal, corn gluten feed, and corn germ meal, and to compare these values with values obtained for corn and distillers dried grains with solubles (DDGS).

Rojas, O. J. and H. H. Stein. 2012. Digestibility of phosphorus by growing pigs of fermented and conventional soybean meal without and with microbial phytase. J. Anim. Sci. 90:1506-1512. Link to full text (.pdf)

Harris, E. K., E. P. Berg, T. C. Gilbery, A. N. Lepper, H. H. Stein, and D. J. Newman. 2012. Effects of replacing soybean meal with pea chips and distillers dried grains with solubles in diets fed to growing-finishing pigs on growth performance, carcass quality, and pork palatability. Prof. Anim. Sci. 28:1-10. Link to full text (.pdf)

Soares, J. A., H. H. Stein, V. Singh, G. S. Shurson, and J. E. Pettigrew. 2012. Amino acid digestibility of corn distillers dried grains with solubles, liquid condensed solubles, pulse dried thin stillage, and syrup balls fed to growing pigs. J. Anim Sci. 90:1255-1261. Link to full text (.pdf)

The U.S. slaughter industry produces blood co-products that may be used in diets for nursery pigs because of the high concentration and quality of protein they contain. The quality of protein in blood products can differ based on the processing techniques used.  In particular, products which are heated to too high a temperature during processing can sustain heat damage to amino acids due to the Maillard reaction. Lysine is particularly susceptible to heat damage.

An experiment was performed to determine the comparative amino acid digestibility in five different blood products fed to weanling pigs. Three are spray-dried products, which are dried quickly at temperatures of up to 225˚C. Spray-dried animal blood (SDAB) is manufactured from whole blood containing an anticoagulant. Spray-dried plasma protein (SDPP) is manufactured from blood which has had the plasma separated out by centrifugation. Spray-dried blood cells (SDBC) are the red blood cells left after plasma separation. In addition to the spray-dried products, two sources of blood meal were tested – one from an avian source (avian blood meal, or ABM) and one from a porcine source (porcine blood meal, or PBM). These blood meals were dried using drum driers instead of spraydriers.

Urriola, P. E. and H. H. Stein. 2012. Comparative digestibility of energy and nutrients in fibrous feed ingredients fed to Meishan and Yorkshire pigs. J. Anim. Sci. 90:802-812. Link to full text (.pdf)

Animal proteins such as milk products, blood products, fish meal, chicken meal, and poultry by-product meal are usually used as amino acid sources in diets for weanling pigs because the nutrients in these ingredients are highly digestible and because they do not contain the anti-nutritional factors that are present  in conventional soybean meal. Due to the cost of animal protein sources, other alternatives have been investigated. One alternative is soybean meal which has been fermented to destroy antinutritional factors and increase protein digestibility. Fermented soybean meal (FSBM) may partly replace milk and blood proteins in diets fed to weanling pigs from seven to 21 days post-weaning. However, there are no data on the inclusion of more than 10% FSBM in diets fed to weanling pigs. Therefore, two experiments were conducted to test the hypothesis that FSBM may be included in diets fed to weanling pigs to replace all animal protein sources.

Kim, B. G., Y. Zhang, and H. H. Stein. 2012. Sulfur concentration in diets containing corn, soybean meal, and distillers dried grains with solubles does not affect feed preference or growth performance of weanling or growing-finishing pigs. J. Anim. Sci. 90:272-281. Link to full text (.pdf)

Lemna Protein Concentrate is derived from the leaves of duckweed, one of several rapidly-growing aquatic plants of the genus Lemna. Duckweed has a number of advantages as a protein source. It is relatively inexpensive to produce and requires less growing area and fewer inputs than other plant protein sources such as soybean products. It also contains relatively little fiber, making it a highly digestible feed ingredient.

An experiment was conducted to determine the digestibility of amino acids and crude protein in Lemna Protein Concentrate fed to weanling pigs and to compare these values to digestibility values obtained for soybean meal and fish meal.