PARTNER FEATURE ▶▶▶
Animal-based proteins can be replaced in diets
Nursery diets are usually a complex composition of expensive ingredients, needed to get piglets through their post-weaning phase. In times of increasing costs of fish meal, producers tend to look for other sources of protein components.
BY DIEGO NAVARRO, PHD, SWINE NUTRITIONIST, HAMLET PROTEIN O
Nursery diets are consumed the least but are the most complex.
f all the diet phases, nursery diets are consumed the least but are also the most complex and most expensive by volume. The lower the aver- age weaning weight, the more complex the di-
ets tend to be to encourage feed intake. There is high ex- pression of the lactase enzyme at this stage of growth, so these diets typically contain lactose as a highly digestible source of carbohydrate. Animal-based proteins may also be included in early nursery diets and serve as highly concentrated sources of amino ac- ids, B-vitamins and minerals. These typically include rendered animal by-products ranging from blood meal, meat meal,
meat and bone meal, poultry by-products and fish meal. Fish meal can be a great source of digestible amino acids, but nutrient composition will vary greatly among sources. Fish meal is priced out of many modern nursery programmes that have access to alternative sources of protein. Meat by-prod- ucts require the application of high heat to control patho- genic bacteria and viruses, resulting in variable nutrient content and quality. Spray-dried plasma has been shown to induce feed intake and supply immunoglobulins, specifical- ly IgG, through the diet. The pig’s capacity to absorb immu- noglobulins reduces drastically 24–36 hours after birth, in- dicating that the main benefit from IgG is to prevent the binding of pathogens to the gut wall. Spray-dried plasma will drive up diet costs and should only be considered in intensive care diets to stimulate feed intake of weak pigs or in nursery programmes targeting traditionally hard starting pigs due to disease challenge.
Feeding all-vegetable diets Feeding an all-vegetable diet to nursery pigs can be tricky but is possible with careful consideration of all ingredients coming into the diet. All-vegetable diets simply means the diets are devoid of animal-based proteins. There is nothing magical about these diets; in fact, grow-finish pigs are fed almost completely 100% plant-based diets apart from sup- plemented vitamins, minerals and crystalline amino acids. The types of cereal grain and oilseed meal incorporated into the diet are dependent on the geographical region. In the US, corn and soybean meal are staples in pig diets at all stages of production. In other parts of the world, wheat or barley may be the main cereal grains, and soybean may be partially or completely replaced by rapeseed meal, cotton- seed meal, copra meal or sunflower meal. However, anti-nu- tritional factors in some cereal grains (e.g. non-starch poly- saccharides) and vegetable proteins (e.g. trypsin inhibitors, tannins, gossypol) limit their use in young animal diets. The development of several specialty vegetable proteins with reduced anti-nutritional factors (such as HP 300) and the increasing availability of crystalline amino acids have made it possible to completely replace animal-based proteins in nursery diets without compromising piglet health or performance. Ingredient availability, commodity pricing, biosecurity or ethical concerns and the preferences
32 ▶ PIG PROGRESS | Volume 37, No. 3, 2021
PHOTO: HAMLET PROTEIN
PHOTO: HAMLET PROTEIN
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