Will You Be My Valen-Swine? 💓🐷

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Bioethanol co-products like corn fermented protein (CFP) provide an economical source of highly-digestible amino acids for swine. Unfortunately, research has demonstrated that the greater leucine content in corn co-products may limit swine performance. New research (Mallea, et al., 2024) demonstrates how adjusting formulation strategies with branched-chain amino acids may minimize some of the negative effects. Researchers formulated 10 diets to contain different amounts of tryptophan (TRP), valine (VAL), and isoleucine (ILE). The following figure illustrates the formulations.

Please note: some treatments have been omitted from the figures for brevity.

Experimental Design - Amino Acid Inclusion

The experiment included 320 weanling pigs (6.11 kg body weight) in a two-phase feeding program (1 – 28 days). The following figure shows the production response for both phases (28 days).

Performance of Weanling Pigs Fed CFP with Amino Acids

The treatment had a significant impact on average daily gain (ADG), feed intake, and gain-to-feed ratio. Combinations of just two of the amino acids did not support performance levels comparable to the control diet. However, pigs supplemented with all three amino acids exhibited performance on par with that of the control group, showing no significant difference in outcomes.

Fecal Scores of Weaning Pigs Fed CFP with Amino Acids

Fecal score: 1, normal feces; 2, moist feces; 3, mild diarrhea; 4, severe diarrhea; and 5, watery diarrhea

This experiment showed that feeding CFP (with or without amino acid supplementation) improved fecal scores of the pigs. Researchers also observed that, compared to pigs fed the control diet, blood urea nitrogen decreased in pigs fed the combination of VAL, TRP, and ILE. This suggests this diet was more efficient for pigs than the control diet.

Final Takeaways

Aside from this extremely cheesy Valentine's themed e-mail, the final takeaways are that results suggest that pigs require all three amino acids to overcome greater leucine concentration. Moreover, the data suggests that VAL was the first-limiting acid in the experimental diets. Additional research should investigate the exact quantity of VAL, ILE, and TRP required by pigs fed diets contain CFP.

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The Typical Inclusion Values set forth above are intended to furnish general information only and are not intended to replace or serve as a substitute for consultation with your nutritionist. Inclusion values vary depending on species, size of species, and other environmental factors. POET makes no representation or warranty, express or implied, regarding the appropriate inclusion value for your feed.