News from the Midwest Sectional Meetings, March 16-18, 1998, Des Moines, Iowa
Contacts:
Phil Miller, animal science, University of Nebraska (402)472-6421
Cheryl Alberts, IANR news writer, (402)472-3030
Less Expensive Nursery Pig Feed May Hold Potential
LINCOLN, Neb. Ä Less expensive feed ingredients may have a place in nursery pig diets, a University of Nebraska study shows.
Although Segregated Early Weaning pigs did well on the trial diets, pigs eating a more traditional diet gained more weight, said Phillip Miller, NU Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources swine nutritionist.
Miller and graduate assistant Stacy Norin compared diets using less expensive alternative ingredients with a traditional nursery diet for pigs weaned at 11 to 14 days. Groups of four pigs ate the various diets for two weeks, then all were fed a common corn-soybean meal diet for five weeks. At the end of seven weeks, all pigs used feed efficiently and gained well, although the pigs eating the traditional nursery diet gained the most weight.
"This looks like an opportunity to use less expensive ingredients," Miller said, adding that further studies are needed to refine this potential. The alternate feed ingredients included egg byproducts and soybeans processed in new ways.
SEW pigs are weaned at two weeks, when their immune system is at its strongest. They are taken to a separate feeding site and raised with other pigs the same age from different litters. As long as the baby pigs don't come in contact with older and possibly diseased pigs, they have the potential to remain healthy without medications and vaccines. The arrangement is becoming more common with producers, Miller noted.
However, he pointed out, two-week old pigs need an easily digested diet high in amino acids, the building blocks of protein. The traditional diet contains corn, milk products, fish meal, soybean meal, cracked oats and highly purified, but expensive blood byproducts.
NU's alternative product diets included spray-dried egg byproducts, extruded soybeans and extruded expelled soybeans. The egg byproduct was a substitute for some of the blood byproduct and is at least one-third less expensive, according to industry price lists. Extruded soybeans were pressurized and heated to destroy compounds believed to adversely affect the young pig's digestion. Extruded expelled soybeans were pressurized, heated and had oil removed.
Extruded soybeans and extruded expelled soybeans are about the same price as regular soybean meal, Miller said.
Pigs in this study were placed in an 18-pen nursery with four pigs per pen. For two weeks, each pen received a different diet containing the same levels of amino acids. The pigs had a high genetic potential for lean growth, Miller added.
At the end of seven weeks, all 168 pigs had done well. However, pigs on the more expensive control diet of traditional corn and blood byproducts gained the most weight and gained it most efficiently. Their weights ranged from 67 pounds to 76 pounds.
Pigs eating a common and least expensive diet of soybean meal, normally fed to pigs at four to six weeks, also did surprisingly well, Miller noted. They weighed an average of 67.5 pounds at the end of seven weeks. Previously pigs this age were believed to have difficulty utilizing diets containing higher percentages of soybean meal.
One alternate diet contained egg byproducts, along with extruded soybeans and blood byproducts. The group of pigs eating this diet weighed about 70 pounds.
Other alternate diets contained extruded soybeans and extruded expelled soybeans, as well as blood byproducts. While these pigs had good gains, they weighed 64 to 66 pounds at the end of seven weeks.
"The performance of pigs with the less expensive ingredients was better than anticipated," Miller said. The weight differences between the three groups may lie with the ratios of amino acids in the feed ingredients or how they were absorbed, he added.
The cost of feed per pound of gain was 46 cents for the traditional diet, 37 cents for soybean meal, 42 cents each for extruded soybeans and the egg byproduct, and 45 cents for the extruded expelled soybeans. These costs consider only feed costs and don't reflect other costs, such as labor and operating expenses, Miller said.
"We feel there is a role for all these ingredients," Miller said, adding that further research could look at refining their use.
Miller presented these findings at the Midwest Section of the American Society of Animal Scientists Tuesday (March 17) in Des Moines.
This research was funded by the Nebraska Soybean Board in cooperation with IANR's Agricultural Research Division.
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