Luciano, A., C. D. Espinosa, L. Pinotti, H. H. Stein. 2022. Standardized total tract digestibility of phosphorus in bakery meal fed to pigs and effects of bakery meal on growth performance of weanling pigs. Animal Feed Science and Technology 284: 115148. doi.org/10.1016/j.anifeedsci.2021.115148.

Luciano, A., C. D. Espinosa, L. Pinotti, and H. H. Stein. 2021. Replacing corn with bakery meal in weanling pig diets: effect on welfare and growth performance. Book of Abstracts. 72nd Ann. Meet. European Fed. Anim.  Sci. Aug. 30 – Sep. 3, 2021, Davos Switzerland. Page 413. Link to abstract.

Blavi, L., J. F. Pérez, A. Forouzandeh, F. González, M. de Angelo, A. Roméo, H. H. Stein, and D. Solà. 2021. Effects of two copper sources on oxidative stress, inflammation, and gene abundance on growing pigs. Book of Abstracts. 72^nd Ann. Meet. European Fed. Anim.  Sci. Aug. 30 – Sep. 3, 2021, Davos, Switzerland. Page 360.

Lee, Su A, and H. H. Stein. 2022. Calcium and phosphorus in late gestation. National Hog Farmer, On-line edition, January, 2022. Link to full text.

Lagos, L. Vanessa, Mike R. Bedford, and Hans H. Stein. 2021. Increased microbial phytase increased phytate destruction, plasma inositol, and feed efficiency of weanling pigs, but reduced dietary calcium and phosphorus did not affect gastric pH or fecal score and reduced growth performance and bone ash. J. Anim. Sci. 99: 12, 1-13. doi.org/10.1093/jas/skab333.

Spray-dried plasma protein is commonly used in weanling diets due its functional components and high concentration of digestible amino acids. Hydrolyzed spray-dried bovine plasma (H-SDBP) is a new source of spray-dried plasma protein that may be used as a protein source in diets for weanling pigs. There are, however, no data to demonstrate the efficacy of this novel source. Pigs fed diets spray-dried plasma protein have increased growth performance when exposed to a challenge model; therefore, it is possible that H-SDBP improves performance of challenged pigs similarly as other sources of spray-dried plasma protein. Therefore, an experiment was conducted to test the hypothesis that dietary inclusion of H-SDBP is as effective as spray-dried bovine plasma (SDBP) in increasing growth performance of weanling pigs housed in uncleaned pens.

In plant-based feed ingredients there is a considerable amount of P bound to phytate, limiting the amount of P that is available for utilization, but inclusion of microbial phytase in pig diets increases the digestibility of P. The negatively charged phytate molecule can chelate Ca cations resulting in formation of insoluble Ca-phytate complexes. Degradation of phytate by microbial phytase may prevent formation of these non-digestible complexes, resulting in increased Ca digestibility. It is also possible that use of exogenous phytase reduces endogenous loss of Ca. If indeed the reduced endogenous loss of Ca is a result of degradation of phytate, it is expected that increased doses of dietary phytase will linearly reduce endogenous losses of Ca, but this hypothesis has not been experimentally verified. Therefore, this experiment was conducted to test the hypothesis that increasing dietary phytase reduces basal endogenous loss of Ca and increases digestibility of P in growing pigs.

Blavi, L., D. Solà-Oriol, A. Monteiro, J. F. Perez, H. H. Stein. 2021. Comparison Between Copper Sulfate and Dicopper Oxide on Body Weight and Copper Accumulation on Growing Pigs.  J. Anim. Sci. 99, (Suppl. S3): 210-211. doi.org/10.1093/jas/skab235.382. Link to abstract.

Sunflower meal (SFM) is a protein source that can be included in diets for pigs and other livestock species. In addition to providing amino acids, SFM also provide energy and other nutrients to diets, but because of the high concentration of fiber, SFM does not contain as much energy as other oilseed meals. The nutritive value of SFM depend on growing area, degree of de-hulling, and oil extraction process. Sunflower meal is obtained through a prepress-solvent extraction method, which yields a meal product with less than 3% fat. However, a double press procedure without solvent extraction may also be used to remove oil from the seeds, which results in generation of a co-product called sunflower expellers (SFE). Because the double-press procedure is less efficient in removing oil from the seeds, SFE contains between 6 and 10% oil. The concentration of fiber and protein also varies among different sources of SFM and SFE and is largely determined by the degree of de-hulling that takes place prior to oil extraction. Because the hulls are very high in fiber, there is a linear relationship between fiber concentration and the concentration of hulls in SFM and SFE, and there is a negative relationship between fiber and protein concentrations. However, data on the digestibility of nutrients and energy and concentrations of digestible energy (DE) and metabolizable energy (ME) in different sources of sunflower co-products are limited. Therefore, the objective of this research was to test the null hypothesis that there are no differences in the apparent total tract digestibility (ATTD) of dry matter, crude protein, fat, and gross energy and concentrations of DE and ME in SFM fed to growing pigs. The second objective was to test the null hypothesis that there are no difference in the ATTD of nutrients and energy concentrations between SFM and SFE fed to growing pigs.