Hello, thank you for viewing my poster, my name is Andrea Mallea, I am a master student at the University of Illinois under the supervision of Dr. Hans Stein and I would like to share some data about the nutritional value of the cheese co-product fed to weanling pigs.
Milk proteins are used to be included in diets for weanling pigs because they cannot be fed exclusively with soybean meal since it may have contain several anti-nutritional factors. Milk by-product are highly digestible, palatable and have an excellent balance of essential amino acids. However, they are highly expensive and can increase the cost of pork production. 
Cheese that cannot be used for human consumption may be used for feeding pigs. Cheese co-product is a mixture of cheese and soybean meal, which is used as carrier to make easier the drying process. 
However, there is limited information about the nutritional value of cheese co-product. Therefore, the objective of this research was to determine the standardized ileal digestibility (SID) and metabolizable energy of cheese co-product and test the hypothesis that cheese co-product can replace spray dried plasma or enzyme treated soybean meal in diets for weanling pigs. 
For that reason, three experiments were conducted:
In experiment 1, 8 ileal-cannulated weanling barrows were used and four diets were formulated, each diet based on enzyme-treated soybean meal, fish meal or cheese co-product. An N-free diet was also included. 
In experiment 2, 32 weanling barrows were place in metabolism crates. Four diets were used, a corn based diet and three additional diets containing a mixture of corn and cheese co-product, enzyme-treated soybean meal or fishmeal. 
In Experiment 3, we used 128 weanling pigs. The feeding program was divided in two phases. In phase 1, four diets were formulated containing different inclusion levels of cheese co-product as a replacement of spray dried plasma, enzyme-treated soybean meal, or both. In phase 2, all the pigs were fed a common corn-soybean meal based diet. 
Moving on to the results, for experiment 1, we can see that cheese co-product had a greater SID of lysine, methionine, tryptophan and threonine than enzyme-treated soybean meal and had a greater SID of methionine than fishmeal. 
For experiment 2, the metabolizable energy in cheese co-product was greater than in fishmeal, enzyme-treated soybean meal and corn. This may be due the higher concentration of fat in cheese co-product than in the other ingredients. 
Finally in experiment 3, the inclusion of different levels of cheese co-product did not affect the final body weight, average daily gain, average daily feed intake or gain:feed ratio. However, in phase 1, the gain:feed ratio tent to increase as the level of cheese co-product increase in the diet. 
In conclusion Cheese co-product has a greater SID of AA and greater ME than fish meal and ESBM, and cheese co-product can replace ESBM and SDP in phase 1 diets without affecting growth performance of pigs.
Thank you for listening my presentation, if you have any question about this research, I can be reach at amallea@illinois.edu and if you would like to know more about the research conducted in the Stein monogastric nutrition laboratory, check out https://nutrition.ansci.illinois.edu/. Thank you.