Soybean meal is a high quality source of protein for swine diets. Due to the growth in global production of pigs and poultry, demand for soybeans is increasing rapidly, outpacing production. Therefore, other sources of plant protein are sometimes used in diets to supply indispensable AA to the animals.

The most abundant oilseeds produced in the world, aside from soybeans, are cottonseed, canola seed (rapeseed), and sunflower seed. These oilseeds may be fed as de-oiled meals, or the full fat seeds can be fed to increase the energy concentration of the diet.

There are no recent data on energy digestibility in canola, cotton, and sunflower products. Therefore, an experiment was conducted to measure the digestible energy (DE) and metabolizable energy (ME) in canola seeds (CS), canola meal (CM), cottonseed meal (CSM), sunflower seeds (SFS), sunflower meal (SFM), and dehulled sunflower meal (SFM-DH), and to compare these values to the DE and ME in soybean meal (SBM).

Due to the increasing demand for protein for livestock feeding, the interest in using canola meal in diets fed to swine is increasing. Canola meal is a product of the rapeseed plant, an abundant oilseed crop grown in Canada, the Northern United States, and parts of Europe. The oil is extracted for use in cooking and agriculture, leaving a high-protein meal that can be used in livestock feeding. Although the concentration of protein and amino acids and the amino acid profile of canola meal is less desirable than that of soybean meal, its relatively low cost may make it an attractive option for producers. Recently, new varieties of canola that contain more protein and less fiber have been selected. The de-oiled meals of these varieties have a concentration of crude protein that is close to that of de-hulled soybean meal.  However, there is no information about the digestibility of amino acid in high protein canola meal when fed to pigs.

It has also been speculated that changes in the traditional pre-press solvent extraction oil removal procedure may improve the quality of canola meal. The traditional procedure involves use of heat to desolventise the de-oiled meal, but a new procedure allows for production of canola meal using a low-temperature procedure. There are, however, no comparative data between meals produced using the traditional high temperature procedure and meals produced using the low-temperature procedure.

When formulating diets for pigs, it is more accurate to use values for standardized or true nutrient digestibility than values for apparent nutrient digestibility because the former are additive in mixed diets. No values for standardized or true total tract digestibility of calcium in pigs have been reported. The true total tract digestibility (TTTD) of a nutrient is calculated by correcting apparently total tract digestibility (ATTD) by total endogenous losses, which may be estimated using a regression procedure. To our knowledge, no measurements of the endogenous loss of calcium in pigs have been reported. An experiment was, therefore,  performed to measure endogenous loss of calcium and to determine TTTD of calcium in growing pigs, and to investigate if  the addition of microbial phytase to the diets affects TTTD of calcium. In addition, calcium retention was measured in pigs fed diets containing varying levels of calcium with or without microbial phytase.

The U.S. slaughter industry produces blood co-products that may be used in diets for nursery pigs because of the high concentration and quality of protein they contain. The quality of protein in blood products can differ based on the processing techniques used.  In particular, products which are heated to too high a temperature during processing can sustain heat damage to amino acids due to the Maillard reaction. Lysine is particularly susceptible to heat damage.

An experiment was performed to determine the comparative amino acid digestibility in five different blood products fed to weanling pigs. Three are spray-dried products, which are dried quickly at temperatures of up to 225˚C. Spray-dried animal blood (SDAB) is manufactured from whole blood containing an anticoagulant. Spray-dried plasma protein (SDPP) is manufactured from blood which has had the plasma separated out by centrifugation. Spray-dried blood cells (SDBC) are the red blood cells left after plasma separation. In addition to the spray-dried products, two sources of blood meal were tested – one from an avian source (avian blood meal, or ABM) and one from a porcine source (porcine blood meal, or PBM). These blood meals were dried using drum driers instead of spraydriers.

Animal proteins such as milk products, blood products, fish meal, chicken meal (CM), and poultry by-product meal (PBM) are usually used as amino acid sources in diets for weanling pigs because the nutrients in these ingredients are highly digestible and because they do not contain the anti-nutritional factors that are present in conventional soybean meal. Due to the cost of animal protein sources, other alternatives have been investigated. One alternative is soybean meal which has been fermented to destroy antinutritional factors and increase protein digestibility. Fermented soybean meal (FSBM) has been shown to be able to replace milk, blood proteins, and fish meal in diets fed to weanling pigs. However, there are no data on whether or not fermented soybean meal can replace chicken meal and poultry by-product meal. An experiment was, therefore, performed to test the hypothesis that fermented soybean meal can replace chicken meal and poultry by-product meal in diets fed to weanling pigs without negatively affecting growth performance.

Lemna Protein Concentrate is derived from the leaves of duckweed, one of several rapidly-growing aquatic plants of the genus Lemna. Duckweed has a number of advantages as a protein source. It is relatively inexpensive to produce and requires less growing area and fewer inputs than other plant protein sources such as soybean products. It also contains relatively little fiber, making it a highly digestible feed ingredient.

An experiment was conducted to determine the digestibility of amino acids and crude protein in Lemna Protein Concentrate fed to weanling pigs and to compare these values to digestibility values obtained for soybean meal and fish meal.

Soybean meal fed to pigs undergoes heat treatment to destroy trypsin inhibitors and other antinutritional factors that impair the digestion of protein and thus reduce performance. However, heat treatment can damage nutrients as well. In particular, the Maillard reaction reduces amino acid digestibility by combining amino acids with sugars to produce biologically unavailable compounds.

An experiment was conducted to determine the digestibility of amino acids in pigs fed soybean meal that had been heat treated in varying ways and for varying times. Conventional soybean meal was divided into four batches. One batch was not heated; one was autoclaved at 125°C for 15 minutes; one was autoclaved at 125°C for 30 minutes; and the last one was oven dried at 125°C for 30 minutes. Ten growing barrows were fed a total of five different diets. The experimental diets contained 40% each of the four different soybean meals being tested. An N-free diet was also formulated and fed to measure the basal endogenous loss of protein and amino acids.

Meat and bone meal (MBM) is a product of the rendering industry composed primarily of the offal and bones of slaughtered livestock, fat from unmarketable animal tissues, unsellable retail meat products, and whole condemned carcasses (excluding hair, blood, hooves, horns, and contents of the gastrointestinal tract).  MBM is traditionally used as an animal protein source in swine diets, but because of its high concentrations of calcium and phosphorus, it can also replace inorganic phosphates in swine diets.

The proportions of soft tissue and bone in different sources of MBM can vary widely. Because mineral digestibility differs in bone and soft tissue, the variation in composition of MBM sources leads to a variation in mineral digestibility values.

An experiment was conducted to 1) determine the apparent (ATTD) and standardized (STTD) total tract digestibility of phosphorus and the ATTD of calcium in 8 different sources of MBM,  2) estimate variation among MBM sources, and 3) develop equations to predict the concentrations of digestible phosphorus and calcium in MBM.

Soybean meal is a rich source of digestible amino acids for pigs. However, soybeans contain antinutritional factors such as antigenic proteins, oligosaccharides, lectins, and trypsin inhibitors that make soybeans and conventional soybean meal unsuitable for feeding to weanling pigs in great quantities. Therefore, animal protein is usually included in starter diets for pigs. Because soy protein is less expensive than the animal protein, strategies to reduce the antinutritional factors in soy products have been explored. Fermentation of soybean meal with bacteria such as Aspergillus oryzae and Lactobacillus subtilis eliminates many antinutritional factors, and studies have shown that fermented soybean meal is well-tolerated by weanling pigs. However, there is a lack of data on the digestibility of energy and amino acids in fermented soybean meal. Two experiments were, therefore, conducted to measure the concentration of DE and ME and the digestibility of amino acids in fermented soybean meal and to compare these values to values obtained in conventional soybean meal and fish meal.