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.

Pelleting and reducing particle size of grains often improve nutrient digestibility by pigs. Pelleting may also reduce particle size of grains, and it is not known if improvements in nutrient digestibility obtained by reducing the particle size of grain and improvements obtained by pelleting are additive or if there are interactions between particle size reduction and pelleting. Therefore, two experiments were conducted to test the hypothesis that particle size reduction and pelleting, separately or in combination, increase the apparent ileal digestibility (AID) of starch, the standardized ileal digestibility (SID) of amino acids (AA), N balance, apparent total tract digestibility (ATTD) of gross energy (GE), fiber, and fat, and net energy (NE) in corn-soybean meal diets fed to growing pigs.

Espinosa, Charmaine D., Leidy J. Torres-Mendoza, and Hans H. Stein. 2023. Torula yeast may improve intestinal health and immune function of weanling pigs. Journal of Animal Science: 101, 1–11. doi.org/10.1093/jas/skad087. Link to full text.

Fanelli, Natalia S., Leidy J. Torres-Mendoza, Jerubella J. Abelilla, and Hans H. Stein. 2023. Chemical composition of copra, palm kernel, and cashew co-products from South-East Asia and almond hulls from Australia. Anim Biosci Vol. 36, No. 5:768-775. doi.org/10.5713/ab.22.0359. Link to full text.