Production

 Industry Partners


Prairie Swine Centre is an affiliate of the University of Saskatchewan


Prairie Swine Centre is grateful for the assistance of the George Morris Centre in developing the economics portion of Pork Insight.

Financial support for the Enterprise Model Project and Pork Insight has been provided by:



Author(s): Hawkins, A.M., C.M. Nyachoti and J. Sands
Publication Date: January 1, 2004
Reference: Council Research News
Country: Canada

Summary:

Phosphorus is an essential nutrient. It is required for bone growth, cell structure, and enzymatic processes, to name a few. However, meeting phosphorus requirements for growing pigs is difficult. That is because approximately 60 % to 70 % of phosphorus in plant-based swine feed ingredients occurs as phytate phosphorus. Phytates are complex molecules that bind phosphorus and other nutrients for storage in seeds and grains. Monogastric animals lack sufficient intestinal phytase, which is the enzyme required to break down phytate molecules and release bound phosphorus. Several studies have shown that supplementing swine diets with the phytase from various sources improves phytate phosphorus utilization. Adding phytase to swine diets may release bound nutrients and increase their digestibilities. However, the extent of such improvement varies with source of phytase and diet type. The objective of our study was to investigate the efficacy of a microbial phytase, specifically Phyzyme XP, a microbial 6-phytase, on phytate phosphorus hydrolysis by growing-finishing pigs. Results from this study show that there was no significant dietary effect on feed intake, average daily gain or feed efficiency. Phytase supplementation did improve fecal phosphorus digestibility compared with the non-supplemented diets. There was no significant difference in phosphorus digestibility between supplementing phytase at 500 or 1000 units of phytase per kilogram of diet. Supplementing the negative control diet with 500 units of phytase per kilogram of diet improved gross energy digestibility from 86.6% to 87.8%. The effect of phytase supplementation on calcium, crude protein, and dry matter digestibility was not significant, but there was a 3% improvement in dry matter digestibility as a result of phytase supplementation at 500 units per kilogram of diet. It was concluded that the phytase enzyme evaluated in this study improves phytate phosphorus utilization in growing-finishing pigs. Microbial phytase may also enhance energy and dry matter utilization of the diet. However, there appears to be no benefit to supplementing this particular phytase at a rate higher than 500 units of phytase per kilogram of diet.

Download PDF »

You must be logged in to post a comment.

 
 
Slots Master There is no definite strategy or technique that you can use as you play slots