Swine nutrition

Feeding strategies

• Keeping track of water intake to monitor pig performance — Water quality and availability for our animals is commonly taken for granted. But water is the nutrient needed in the largest amount by swine.
• Formulating farm-specific swine diets — One diet cannot meet the needs of all pigs in different swine operations. It is recommended to modify your feeding program specific to your farm.
• Good gut health can help prevent disease in swine — Gut microflora, diet and increases in pathogens interact in swine digestion. Formulating diets is a key tool for maintaining gut health and preventing intestinal disease, especially when using fewer antibiotics.

Ingredient quality

• Mycotoxins harm swine health and reproductive performance — Some fungi molds in grain can produce harmful compounds called mycotoxins. Pigs consuming mycotoxins above their tolerance level will face health and reproductive problems. Submitting samples of contaminated feeds to a lab can help you manage your feeding practices and prevent mycotoxin toxicity in your pigs.
• Mixing your own swine feed — Monitoring feed quality from purchase to consumption is key to successful pork production, including quality control when mixing swine feed.

Alternative ingredients

• Feeding value and energy prediction of DDGS with differing oil content  — The oil content of corn distillers dried grains with solubles (DDGS) doesn’t affect growth performance and carcass traits of grow-finish pigs if the sources have similar metabolizable energy (ME) content. Reducing the oil content of DDGS improves the quality of pork fat.
• Using crude glycerol in sow diets — Including up to 9% crude glycerol in lactating sow diets likely doesn’t affect sow performance compared to a typical corn-soybean meal diet.
• Using microalgae in swine diets — With further research, microalgae can enhance the sustainability of animal and food production systems. Their rapid growth and nutritional content may be valuable for use in swine diets in the future. Microalgae could be an alternative feed ingredient that helps support growing populations