Group-housed Indirect Calorimeter

Net energy of U.S. soybean meal greater than previously estimated

Lee, Su A, D. A. Rodriguez, and H. H. Stein. 2021. Net energy of U.S. soybean meal greater than previouly estimated. National Hog Farmer, On-line edition, March, 2021. Link to full text.

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Determination of net energy in U.S. soybean meal fed to group-housed growing pigs

Soybean meal (SBM) is the major source of amino acids in diets for swine throughout the world. However, in addition to providing indispensable amino acids to diets, SBM also provides energy to the diets. Diets are often formulated based on the net energy (NE) in each individual ingredient using a linear programming computer software. Therefore, the NE for each ingredient is important for the value the ingredient is assigned in the formulation. However, the NE for SBM that is used by most feed formulators was generated many years ago, but results of recent research indicate that current U.S. SBM may provide more NE than previously estimated, which potentially results in an increased estimation of the value of SBM in diets for pigs. There is, therefore, a need for confirming or updating the NE value for SBM. As a consequence, the objective of this experiment was to test the hypothesis that the NE in U.S. SBM fed to modern genotypes of pigs is greater than the value that is currently used in feed formulation.

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