Values for digestible energy (DE) and metabolizable energy (ME) in feed ingredients are usually determined in growing pigs and subsequently applied to all groups of pigs. Results of recent research, however, indicate that the energy content of soybean meal (SBM) is greater than previously thought when fed to growing pigs. This increase in energy may be due to changes in the pigs themselves or differences in methodology, but there are no recent experiments assessing DE and ME in SBM when fed to sows. Therefore, it remains unclear if sows also have greater DE and ME in SBM compared with current book values. Likewise, there are no recent data for the DE and ME in soybean hulls although soybean hulls are often added to diets for gestating sows. Therefore, an experiment was conducted to test the hypothesis that gestating and lactating sows have greater DE and ME in SBM and soybean hulls than growing pigs and that DE and ME in SBM fed to both growing pigs and sows are greater than current book values. The second hypothesis was that there is no difference in apparent total tract digestibility (ATTD) of gross energy (GE) and DE between gestating and lactating sows.

Ruiz-Arias, N. C., S. A Lee, and H. H. Stein. 2024. Full-fat soybeans: Valuable source of energy, digestible P for pigs. National Hog Farmer. On-line edition. Oct. 31, 2024. Link to full text.

Ibagon, J. A., S. A. Lee, and H. H. Stein. 2024. Empirical validation of implementing high energy in soybean meal: soybean oil equivalence of soybean meal in diets fed to growing pigs. In: 75th Annual Meeting of the EAAP, Florence, Italy, Sep. 1-5, 2024.

Ruiz-Arias, Nelson C., Su A Lee, Hans H. Stein. 2024. Standardized ileal digestibility of amino acids and concentration of metabolizable energy in three sources of corn protein fed to weanling pigs. J. Anim. Sci Vol. 102, Suppl. S2. P 94 - 95. doi.org/10.1093/jas/skae102.106 Link to abstract.

Ruiz-Arias, N. C., S. A. Lee, H. H. Stein. 2024. Standardized ileal digestibility of amino acids and metabolizable energy in three sources of high-protein corn distillers dried grains fed to weanling pigs. Animal Feed Science and Technology 313, 115985. doi.org/10.1016/j.anifeedsci.2024.115985 Link to full text.

Velayudhan, Deepak E., Ester Vinyeta-Punti, Rachael Hardy, Leon Marchal, Charles Martin Nyachoti, Hans H. Stein, Yueming Dersjant-Li. 2023. The Effect of a Novel Consensus Bacterial 6-Phytase Variant on Ileal Digestibility of Energy in Growing Pigs: Meta-Analysis of 4 Trials. J. Anim. Sci., Volume 101, Issue Supplement_2, November 2023, Pages 117–118, doi.org/10.1093/jas/skad341.131. Link to abstract.

Acosta Medellin, Jessica P., Charmaine D. Espinosa, Gemma Gonzalez Ortiz, Hans H. Stein. 2023. Concentration of Digestible Energy in Corn-Based Diets Fed to Gestating and Lactating Sows is Increased by Adding Xylanase to the Diets. J. Anim. Sci., Volume 101, Issue Supplement 2, Pages 35–36, doi.org/10.1093/jas/skad341.040. Link to abstract.

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.

Exogenous enzymes may improve the fermentability of dietary fiber in swine diets by hydrolyzing non-starch polysaccharides into oligosaccharides and sugars. In particular, the enzyme xylanase hydrolyzes the β-(1-4) glycosidic bonds between the xylose units in the backbone of arabinoxylans in cereal grains and grain coproducts, resulting in the release of a combination of xylose, arabinose, and xylo-oligosaccharides from arabinoxylans that can be fermented by pigs. Previous data indicate that xylanase increased the degradation of dietary fiber and increased energy digestibility in diets for growing pigs; however, there are limited data for the impact of xylanase on energy and fiber digestibility in gestating and lactating sows. Therefore, an experiment was conducted to test the hypothesis that exogenous xylanase added to diets for gestating and lactating sows will increase the apparent total tract digestibility (ATTD) of gross energy and total dietary fiber (TDF), and increase the concentrations of digestible energy (DE) and metabolizable energy (ME) during two reproductive cycles.