Soybean meal (SBM) is one of the most important protein sources in swine diets. However, SBM has high concentrations of non-digestible oligosaccharides, mainly stachyose, raffinose, and verbascose, which may increase diarrhea incidence and reduce nursery growth performance. Fermex 200 (Purina Animal Nutrition, Shoreview, MN, USA) is a new source of fermented SBM that may serve as an alternative to other protein sources in diets fed to pigs. However, there are at this point no data for effects of Fermex 200 on growth performance and amino acid (AA) digestibility when fed to weanling pigs.

Therefore, 2 experiments were conducted to test the hypothesis that the apparent ileal digestibility (AID) and standardized ileal digestibility (SID) of AA in Fermex 200 are greater than in conventional SBM. The second hypothesis was that Fermex 200 supports growth of weanling pigs as well as other protein sources.

The requirement for Cu for normal metabolism by weanling pigs is 5 to 6 mg/kg, but it is common practice to include additional Cu in diets for pigs to enhance growth performance. Several modes of action for the improved growth performance have been proposed, and one proposed mode of action is the ability of Cu to alter microbial activity. The apparent total tract digestibility (ATTD) of acid hydrolyzed ether extract (AEE) is improved if Cu hydroxychloride is supplemented to high fiber diets. Therefore, an experiment was conducted to test the hypothesis that inclusion of 150 mg/kg of Cu from Cu hydroxychloride (IntelliBond C^II; Micronutrients USA LLC; Indianapolis, IN) to diets fed to growing pigs improves apparent ileal digestibility (AID) and ATTD of AEE, and the AID of crude protein. The second objective was to test the hypothesis that supplementing diets with Cu hydroxychloride can reduce the concentration of microbial protein in the small intestine or in the large intestine by pigs fed a corn-soybean meal diet or a diet based on corn, soybean meal, and distillers dried grains with solubles (DDGS).

Blavi, L., and H. H. Stein. 2017. Zinc oxide and microbial phytase may reduce calcium and phosphorus digestibility. National Hog Farmer, Online edition, March 30, 2017. Link to full text.

Cerisuelo, A., P. Ferrer, E. Gómez, H. Stein, T. Woyengo, J. Cano, and O. Piquer. 2018. Protein and amino acid digestibility of Camelina sativa co-products for growing pigs. 14th International Symposium on Digestive Physiology of Pigs. Adv. Anim. Biosci. Volume 9, Issue S2, 9:S148-149. (Abstr.). Link to abstract

Lee, Su A, L. Vanessa Lagos, Carrie L. Walk, and Hans H. Stein. 2019. Basal endogenous loss, standardized total tract digestibility of calcium in calcium carbonate, and retention of calcium in gestating sows change during gestation, but microbial phytase reduces basal endogenous loss of calcium. J. Anim. Sci. 2019.97:1712–1721. Link to full text.

Lee, S. A., L. V. Lagos, and H. H. Stein. 2019. Digestible calcium and digestible phosphorus in swine diets. In Proc. London Swine Conference, London, ON, Canada. March 26-27, 2019. Pages 63-72. Link full text(.pdf)

Double-low rapeseed meal (RSM) is currently used as a protein ingredient in animal diets. Heat treatment of RSM at varying processing conditions removes the residual hexane and efficiently reduces the glucosinolate content. However, variations in heat processing temperatures and duration of heat treatment may result in Maillard reactions, resulting in the formation of sugar-amino acid complexes. Maillard reaction products result in reduced standardized ileal digestibility (SID) of amino acids (AA), with Lys being the most sensitive AA. However, there is limited information about how heating affects the concentration of digestible energy (DE) and metabolizable energy (ME). Therefore, the objective of this experiment was to test the hypothesis that both the degree of heating and the time that heat is applied will affect the concentration of DE and ME and the SID of AA in double-low RSM fed to growing pigs.

Navarro D. M. D. L., E. M. A. M. Bruininx, L. de Jong, H. H. Stein. 2019. Effects of inclusion rate of high fiber dietary ingredients on apparent ileal, hindgut, and total tract digestibility of dry matter and nutrients in ingredients fed to growing pigs. Anim. Feed Sci. Technol. 248: 1 - 9. Link to full text.

McGhee Molly L. and Hans. H. Stein. 2018. Apparent and standardized ileal digestibility of AA and starch in hybrid rye, barley, wheat, and corn fed to growing pigs. J. Anim. Sci. 96:3319–3329.  Link to full text.