Mallea, A. P., S. A Lee, and H. H. Stein. 2025. Could soybean meal and high levels of phytase aid pigs in the post-weaning period?. National Hog Farmer. On-line edition. May 29, 2025. Link to full text.
Pistachio blanks are coproducts of pistachio processing and are discarded due to their hollow shells or immature nuts, which make them unusable as human food. Pistachio blanks float in water and the annual production is estimated to be between 50,000 and 70,000 metric tons. A similar coproduct, pistachio shell powder, was recently demonstrated to provide significant amounts of energy in diets for sows. However, there is no information about the digestibility of amino acids (AA) in pistachio blanks when fed to pigs. Although AA concentration in pistachio blanks is low, there is a need for determining standardized ileal digestibility (SID) of AA in pistachio blanks. Therefore, an experiment was conducted to test the hypothesis that the SID of AA in pistachio blanks are comparable to those in soybean meal (SBM) when fed to growing pigs.
Diets for pigs may vary in composition and in their concentration of the energy containing nutrients (i.e., protein, fat, starch and sugars, and dietary fiber). To our knowledge, however, there is no information on how concentration of net energy (NE) is affected by dietary fat concentrations in diets fed to group-housed pigs. Therefore, the objective of this experiment is to test the hypothesis that increased soybean oil in diets for group-housed growing pigs will increase NE and nitrogen balance.
Ibagon, Jimena A., Hans H. Stein, and Su A. Lee. 2025. The soybean oil equivalency of soybean meal indicates a high energy value of soybean meal when fed to growing pigs. Can. J. Anim. Sci. 105: 1–7 (2025) | dx.doi.org/10.1139/cjas-2025-0002 Link to full text.
Diets for pigs may vary in composition and in their concentration of the energy containing nutrients (i.e., protein, fat, starch and sugars, and dietary fiber). To our knowledge, however, there is no information on how concentration of net energy (NE) is affected by dietary starch and fiber concentrations in diets fed to group-housed pigs. Therefore, the objective of this experiment is to determine NE and nitrogen balance in diets containing various levels of starch and fiber fed to group-housed pigs.
Diets with high inclusion of corn fermented protein (CFP) may have an excess of Leu, which has a negative impact on the growth performance of pigs. Tryptophan is a precursor of serotonin, which is a neurotransmitter that is critical for feed intake regulation, and excess dietary Leu may reduce synthesis of serotonin in the brain by preventing Trp from being transported to the brain. Reduced serotonin synthesis can result in reduced feed intake and pigs with reduced feed intake due to excess Leu also have reduced growth performance. As a consequence, if diets are formulated based on CFP instead of soybean meal (SBM), diets need to be fortified with extra Trp to account for the reduced efficiency of Trp due to the excess Leu in corn protein. However, a quantitative assessment of how much extra Trp is needed in diets based on CFP instead of SBM has not been conducted. Therefore, an experiment was conducted to test the hypothesis that the optimum Trp:Lys ratio in diets for growing pigs is greater if CFP rather than SBM is used as the protein source in the diets.
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.
Most of the P in corn and soybean meal (SBM) is stored as phytate. Phytase consists of one hydroxylated inositol ring with six phosphate groups. Therefore, phytase is often included at a standard level of 500 units (FTU) per kg in swine diets to increase the release of P from phytate. However, greater concentrations of phytase in diets for pigs may benefit growth and feed efficiency, which is likely a result of the inositol that is also released and can be absorbed by pigs. Inositol is believed to increase growth of animals by stimulating protein accretion. Inositol also improves gut health of pigs by enhancing intestinal epithelial cell functions. However, data from recent research demonstrated that weaning pigs at around 21 days of age results in a dramatic drop in plasma inositol and it is not until 6 weeks post-weaning that pigs will regain preweaning levels of inositol. Therefore, an experiment was conducted to test the hypothesis that microbial phytase will release sufficient inositol from corn and SBM and other ingredients in diets for newly weaned pigs to maintain pre-weaning levels of plasma inositol throughout the post-weaning phase and that this will result in improved growth performance of pigs.
Stein, H.H. 2024. Review: Aspects of digestibility and requirements for minerals and vitamin D by growing pigs and sows. Animal 18, 101125. doi.org/10.1016/j.animal.2024.101125 Link to full text.
Cristobal, M., S. A Lee, and H. H. Stein. 2024. Diet protein concentration does not influence net energy. National Hog Farmer. On-line edition. Aug. 29, 2024. Link to full text.
Stein, H. H. 2024. Review: Aspects of digestibility and requirements for minerals and vitamin D by growing pigs and sows. Animal 18, 101125. doi.org/10.1016/j.animal.2024.101125 Link to full text.
Manaig, Y. J. Y., and H. H. Stein. 2024. Practical feeding: Formulating swine diets to meet Ca and P requirement. Feed Strategy, May-June edition. Page 30-32. Link to full text.
Lopez, Diego A., Su A. Lee, Hans H. Stein. 2022. Effects of microbial phytase on standardized total tract digestibility of phosphorus in feed phosphates fed to growing pigs. J. Anim. Sci. Vol 100, Issue 12, skac350, doi.org/10.1093/jas/skac350. Link to full text.
Dunmire, Kara M., Diego A. Lopez, Yiqin Zhang, Cassandra K. Jones, Yonghui Li, Jason C. Woodworth, Robert D. Goodband, Michael D. Tokach, Charles R. Stark, Hans H. Stein, and Chad B. Paulk. 2024.
Ibagon, Jimena A., Su A. Lee, C. Martin Nyachoti, and Hans H. Stein. 2024. Influence of particle size and origin of field peas on apparent ileal digestibility of starch and amino acids and standardized ileal digestibility of amino acids when fed to growing pigs. Translational Animal Science, 2024, 8, txae008. doi.org/10.1093/tas/txae008.
Gomez-Marin, Cristina, Hans H. Stein, Natalia S. Fanelli, Beatriz Miralles, Isidra Recio. 2023. In vitro digestibility of plant-based protein foods and ingredients using the INFOGEST workflow vs standardised values in growing pigs. International Symposium Dietary Protein for Human Health. Utrecht, The Netherlands Sep 2023. Pag 90. Link to Abstract.
Stein, H. H. 2023. Estimates of Requirements for Digestible Ca by Growing Pigs. Proc. 22nd Annual Midwest Swine Nutrition Conf. Danville, IN, Sep. 8, 2023. Pages 13-17. Link to full text.
Lee, S. A, and H. H. Stein. 2023. Advantages of Higher Soybean Meal Diets for Pigs. Proc. 22nd Annual Midwest Swine Nutrition Conf. Danville, IN, Sep. 7, 2023. Pages 41-46. Link to full text.
Stein, Hans H., Cristhiam J. Munoz, and Su A Lee. 2023. Factors affecting net energy values of diets fed to group housed and ad libitum fed growing pigs. XXXVIII Curso de especializacion FEDNA. Pag 213 - 223. Link to full text.