To reduce the cost of pork production, high-fiber ingredients are often used in diets, but an increase in the amount of dietary fiber in pig diets may have a negative impact on the digestibility of nutrients and energy. Carbon footprint from pork production is related to emissions of greenhouse gases including carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, and methane from pigs. Emission of gases may be correlated with the composition of feeds, and it is thus possible that feeding pigs with diets containing high-fibrous feed ingredients affects the gas exchange, which also impacts concentration of net energy (NE) in diets.

Therefore, the objective of this experiment was to test the null hypothesis that feeding pigs with a high-fiber diet does not affect gas production, N excretion, and NE in diets fed to group-housed pigs.

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.

Oliveira, M. S. F., C. D. Espinosa, L. Blavi, M. Mortada, F. N. Almeida, H. H. Stein. 2022. Effects of a mixture of xylanase and glucanase on digestibility of energy and dietary fiber in corn- or sorghum based diets fed to growing pigs.

McGhee, Molly L., and Hans. H. Stein. 2020. The apparent ileal digestibility and the apparent total tract digestibility of carbohydrates and energy in hybrid rye are different from some other cereal grains when fed to growing pigs. Journal of Animal Science, 2020, Vol. 98, No. 7, 1–10. doi:10.1093/jas/skaa218. Link to full text.

Navarro Diego M. D. L., Jerubella J. Abelilla, and Hans H. Stein. 2019. Structures and characteristics of carbohydrates in diets fed to pigs: a review. Journal of Animal Science and Biotechnology, 2019, 10:39. Link to full text.

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.

Stewart, L. L., D. Y. Kil, F. Ji, R. B. Hinson, A. D. Beaulieu, G. L. Allee, J. F. Patience, J. E. Pettigrew, and H. H. Stein. 2009. Net energy of soybean hulls and wheat middlings in diets fed to growing or finishing pigs. J. Anim. Sci. 87 (E-Suppl. 3):99-100 (Abstr.) Link to abstract (.pdf)

Cervantes-Pahm, S. K., B. G. Kim, and H. H. Stein. 2009. Digestible energy in resistant starch and dietary fiber sources fed to pigs. J. Anim. Sci. 87 (E-Suppl. 2):547 (Abstr.) Link to abstract (.pdf)