Achievements

Conferences

Doctor Stein participated in several conferences in November: 

• Novus International. Madrid, Spain. Nov. 4, 2025, he talked about "Calcium and phosphorus needs of sows." 
• XL Curso de especializacion FEDNA. Madrid, Spain. Nov. 5-6, 2025. Dr. Stein gave two presentations in Spanish about: "Sistemas de valoración energética de piensos y materias primas en alimentación animal: últimos avances." and also "Implementacion de un sistema de calcio digestible en la alimentación de cerdos."
• Hygienzo. Madrid, Spain, Nov. 6, 2025. he presented: "Growth performance of weanling pigs fed diets supplemented with a novel acidifier."
• Sano Feed Company. Budapest Hungary. Nov. 12, 2025. Dr. Hans Stein talked about: "Towards increased accuracy of estimating net energy in diets for pigs" and "Calcium, phosphorus, phytase and vitamin D in diets for growing and reproducing pigs."

New Experiments

Juliana Ravagnani, master student started in December an experiment in the nursery, "Effect of soybean hulls on growth performance of weanling pigs." The objective of this experiment is to test the hypothesis that the addition of soybean hulls may improve the immune system of weanling pigs resulting in greater growth performance. The second hypothesis was that the effect of using soybean hulls in post-weaning diets is greater in offspring of sows fed soybean hulls in lactation than in offspring of sows that were not fed soybean hulls during lactation.

Personnel changes

Natalia Saldanha Balbinot spend the last couple of months with us and she left in December to finish her bachelor degree in Costa Rica.

Publications

Peer-reviewed publications:

Cristobal, Minoy, Su A Lee , Carl M. Parsons, and Hans H. Stein. Feeding intact protein from soybean meal instead of corn and synthetic amino acids does not affect growth performance, carcass composition, blood cytokines, or mRNA abundance of intestinal amino acid transporters in growing pigs, but net energy tends to be greater in diets with soybean meal. Journal of Animal Science, 2025, 103, skaf349 doi.org/10.1093/jas/skaf349 

Abstracts:

Acosta, J. P., S. A Lee, and H. H. Stein. 2025. Greenhouse gas emission, nitrogen balance, and ileal digestibility of amino acids and acid hydrolyzed ether extract in diets containing different inclusion rates of hybrid rye fed to growing pigs. J. Anim. Sci. 103(Suppl3), 186-187.  doi.org/10.1093/jas/skaf300.224

Lee, S. A, and H. H. Stein. 2025. Determination of net energy and nitrogen balance in group-housed pigs fed diets containing varying levels of starch and fiber. J. Anim. Sci. 103(Supplement_3), 181-182. doi.org/10.1093/jas/skaf300.221 

Fanelli, N. S., J. C. F. R. Martins, and H. H. Stein. 2025. Protein quality of salmon protein hydrolystes using the digestible indispensable amino acid score (DIAAS) method. Current Dev. Nutr. 9:106016. doi.org/10.1016/j.cdnut.2025.106593

Tome, D., J. Calvez, R. Elango,.E. Ferriolli, C. Gaudichon, G. Courtney-Martin, F. Han, M. Hayes, S. Hodgkinson, A. Kurpad, J. J. Mes, V. Owino, I. Recio, S. P. Shertukdef, H.H. Stein, A. Vlassopoulos, M. Xipsiti. 2025. An expert consensus framework for a database on ileal amino acid digestibility and protein quality scoring from foods consumed by humans. Current Dev. Nutr. 9:107291. doi.org/10.1016/j.cdnut.2025.107291

Extension Publication:

Cristobal, M., S. A. Lee, C. M. Parsons, and H. H. Stein. 2025. Soybean meal remains a valuable pig feed ingredient. National Hog Farmer, On-line edition, October 30, 2025.