K-State updates Swine Nutrition Guide

Jul 07, 2020

By Pat Melgares

Kansas State University swine specialists have updated their popular nutrition guide with the latest recommendations for nursery pigs, sows and finishing pigs.

Bob Goodband, K-State Research and Extension specialist in swine nutrition and management, said the information covers swine producer’s most frequently asked questions about nutrition and the specifics to each phase of production.

“It covers a lot of recommendations that can be quickly applied to a producer’s nutrition program,” Goodband said. “It should be able to help people with decision-making on products and nutrient specifications to help improve pig performance and lower feed costs.”

Graduate students Mariana Menegat and Hayden Williams helped lead the recent updates along with K-State faculty in applied swine nutrition.

The K-State Swine Nutrition guide was initially produced in the 1970s and is updated periodically, Goodband said. In 2019, K-State’s swine team added sections on general nutrition and nursery pigs; and earlier this year, finished sections on the breeding herd and finishing pigs. All of the recommendations are based on university research.

The guide is available online at KSUswine.org.

“In addition to the nutrition guide, that site has a lot of other information, such as premix specifications, nutrient requirements, and tools for estimating the changes in growth and profitability,” Goodband said.

Some of the online resources that K-State provides include tools for budgeting feed; estimating changes in production when adjusting pig space stocking densities; and estimating feed efficiency and return on investment when making changes to the diet.

Source : k-state.edu

Video: US Soy: Pig growth is impaired by soybean meal displacement in the diet

Eric van Heugten, PhD, professor and swine extension specialist at North Carolina State University, recently spoke at the Iowa Swine Day Pre-Conference Symposium, titled Soybean Meal 360°: Expanding our horizons through discoveries and field-proven feeding strategies for improving pork production. The event was sponsored by Iowa State University and U.S. Soy.

Soybean meal offers pig producers a high-value proposition. It’s a high-quality protein source, providing essential and non-essential amino acids to the pig that are highly digestible and palatable. Studies now show that soybean meal provides higher net energy than current National Research Council (NRC) requirements. Plus, soybean meal offers health benefits such as isoflavones and antioxidants as well as benefits with respiratory diseases such as porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome (PRRS).

One of several ingredients that compete with the inclusion of soybean meal in pig diets is dried distillers grains with solubles (DDGS).

“With DDGS, we typically see more variable responses because of the quality differences depending on which plant it comes from,” said Dr. van Heugten. “At very high levels, we often see a reduction in performance especially with feed intake which can have negative consequences on pig performance, especially in the summer months when feed intake is already low and gaining weight is at a premium to get them to market.”

Over the last few decades, the industry has also seen the increased inclusion of crystalline amino acids in pig diets.

“We started with lysine at about 3 lbs. per ton in the diet, and then we added methionine and threonine to go to 6 to 8 lbs. per ton,” he said. “Now we have tryptophan, isoleucine and valine and can go to 12 to 15 lbs. per ton. All of these, when price competitive, are formulated into the diet and are displacing soybean meal which also removes the potential health benefits that soybean meal provides.”