Swine Nutrition-Distiller Grains and Alternative Feedstocks was among the topics examined this week as part of Saskatchewan Pork Industry Symposium 2009 in Saskatoon.

Dr Martin Nyachoti, with the University of Manitoba's Faculty of Agricultural and Food Sciences, observes nutritionists have recognized the value of using systems that better describe the availability of nutrients in feed ingredients to better match the nutritional requirements of the pig.

Dr Martin Nyachoti-University of Manitoba

For example for supplying energy there are three systems that one can use.
One is the digestible energy system (DE), the other one is the metabolizable energy system (ME) and then the last one is the net energy system (NE).

The net energy system reflects the energy that the pig will actually utilize so, for ingredients that have higher protein content, for ingredients that have high fibre content, it's much more effective to utilize net energy as a system for formulating the diets because the other two systems tend to over-value ingredients that have high fibre and high protein when in actual sense the energy value is a lot less if you were to use the net energy system.

And for amino acids, at least digestible amino acids, ileal digestible amino acids should be used and as I indicated we should use standardized ileal digestibility amino acids in swine formulations because those are a better reflection of how much is available to the pig and there are also more additives in a mixture of feed ingredients so you have a much better way of predicting what the animals will do or how the animals will perform.

Dr Nyachoti says nutrient content and availability in ingredients vary, so by using a system that clearly describes what the ingredient brings to the formula, they can be used much more effectively in swine diets.