Interpretive Summary: Feeding thermally processed spray-dried egg whites, singly or in combination with 15-acetyldeoxynivalenol or peroxidized soybean oil on growth performance, digestibility, intestinal morphology, and oxidative status in nursery pigs

By: Victoria C Wilson, Susan P McCormick, Brian J Kerr

Swine can be exposed to a variety of nutritional stressors that can affect their well-being and productivity. Three stressors of concern include grains with naturally occurring mycotoxins, oxidized proteins in feedstuffs due to overheating during processing, or lipids that have been damaged by excessive heating. Experiments were conducted to determine how susceptible a previously processed feedstuff was to protein oxidation and whether feeding mycotoxins, oxidized protein, or peroxidized soybean oil would affect growth performance, intestinal morphology, digestibility, and markers of oxidative stress in nursery pigs. Results indicate it was difficult to induce protein oxidation in previously processed protein by heating in a forced air oven, and if some protein oxidation did occur, there is limited effects on growth performance, digestibility, intestinal morphology, and oxidative status in nursery pigs. The data also indicated that adding an isolated mycotoxin was difficult to ensure proper mixing from which to analyze the complete diet from which to conduct animal research. At last, the data show that adding soybean oil that has been thermally processed to contain high concentrations of aldehydes will result in a dramatic reduction in animal performance, but has limited effects on digestibility, intestinal morphology, and oxidative status in nursery pigs.