Editor's Note
The current issue of the newsletter contains the following:
- A research report on digestibility of amino acids in novel soybean products.
- A conference proceedings paper entitled “Distillers dried grains with solubles (DDGS) and the use of phytase to address digestibility issues in pigs”. This paper was recently presented at the 46th Eastern Nutrition Conference in Guelph, Canada.
- An article entitled “Nutrition advances benefit swine and the bottom line”. This article was recently published in Feed Management.
Sincerely,
Hans H Stein
Research Report
Digestibility of amino acids in novel soybean products
Raw soybeans contain antinutritional factors such as trypsin inhibitors (TI) and lectins. The production of soybean meal involves a heating step, which reduces these anti-nutritional factors. However, conventional soybean meal contains compounds which can cause digestive disturbances in weanling pigs. Soybean meal is therefore limited in pig starter diets. Other protein sources, such as fish meal, casein, and soy protein isolate, are used for young pigs.
Two new soybean products were recently introduced to the U.S. feed market. Fermented soybean meal (FSBM) and enzyme-treated soybean meal (ESBM) are believed to have a lower concentration of antinutritional factors and a higher concentration of crude protein and amino acids than conventional soybean meal. They are also believed to be better tolerated by young pigs. However, not much is known about the digestibility of the protein in these two products.
This experiment was conducted to compare the digestibility of amino acids in weanling pigs of FSBM, ESBM, conventional de-hulled soybean meal, fish meal, casein, and soy protein isolate.
Conference Paper
Distillers dried grains with solubles (DDGS) and the use of phytase to address digestibility issues in pigs
Distillers dried grains with solubles (DDGS) and other co-products from the fuel ethanol industry may be used in diets fed to swine without compromising pig performance. Because DDGS and high protein distillers dried grain (HP DDG) are fermented during production of ethanol, the digestibility of phosphorus in these co-products is much greater than in corn and corn germ that have not been fermented. The standardized total tract digestibility (STTD) of P in DDGS and HP DDG may, therefore, exceed 70%, whereas the STTD of P in corn and corn germ usually is less than 40%. If microbial phytase is added to the products, STTD values for DDGS and HP DDG may exceed 80%. Because of this high digestibility of P and because of the relatively high concentration of P in DDGS, no inorganic P is needed in diets fed to weanling pigs from approximately 11 kg if the combination of DDGS and microbial phytase is added to the diet. Diets containing both DDGS and phytase will support pig growth performance that is similar to that of pigs fed diets containing corn, soybean meal, and dicalcium phosphate, but the excretion of P from the pigs is reduced by approximately 50%.
Featured Article
Nutrition advances benefit swine and the bottom line
From year 2000 to the end of 2009, a total of 12 experiments in which corn DDGS was included in diets fed to weanling pigs from 2 weeks post-weaning were published. The inclusion of DDGS varied from 10 to 30% in these experiments and pig growth rate was not significantly reduced in any of the experiments. Feed intake was, however, reduced in 4 of the 12 experiments, which is consistent with observations indicating that pigs prefer to eat diets containing no DDGS if they have a choice. There have been no reports on negative effects of corn DDGS on pig mortality and the gain to feed ratio has been improved in 5 of the 12 experiments. It is, therefore concluded that if it is economical, corn DDGS can be included in diets fed to weanling pigs from 2 weeks post weaning in concentrations of up to 30%.