Alternative Feedstuffs and Feeding Programs for Nursery Pigs -Banff 2016

Posted in: Nutrition, Pork Insight Articles by admin on May 3, 2017

Feeding of nursery pigs has two key phases, each with its own focus: immediately post-weaning when the goal is getting pigs to eat, and the subsequent phase when you try to raise the pig’s capacity to eat by maximizing flexibility in feed formulation while maintaining growth performance.

Dietary feedstuffs directly impact feed costs and competitiveness, while functional characteristics of carbohydrates such as starch, fiber and oligosaccharides are critical to value-added attributes like intestine health.

Zijlstra cited some interesting findings here from relevant studies:

• Young pigs fed diets containing less energy and more fiber boasted the greatest feed intake and gain, but with a reduced feed efficiency.
• While increased dietary acid-detergent fiber consistently reduced energy digestibility, effects on feed intake were inconsistent.
• Barley-based diets may provide an advantage over their wheat-based counterparts.
• While pigs have strong preferences for certain feeds and feedstuffs, diets including alternative protein feedstuffs can produce a growth performance comparable to pigs on a soybean meal-based diet.

The article also covers the prebiotic effect  of fiber on nursery pigs, and the inclusion of fermented cereal grain in the feed to produce exopolysaccharide, which may reduce the incidence of diarrhea by providing an alternative target for Enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli to adhere to.

Alternative Feedstuffs and Feeding Programs for Nursery Pigs -Banff 2016

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