A Swine Nutritionist with Iowa State University says more and more the ingredients being included in rations for pigs are being selected based on their health benefits as well as their nutritional composition.
Legislation-Consumerism-Export, Complicating the Life of the Nutritionist will be discussed in mid-November as part of Saskatchewan Pork Industry Symposium 2018 in Saskatoon.
Dr. John Patience, a Professor in Applied Swine Nutrition with Iowa State University, says nutritionists are becoming increasingly familiar with what is known as the functional properties of the ingredients used to formulate swine diets.
Clip-Dr. John Patience-Iowa State University:
Traditionally we have selected ingredients on the basis of the nutrients that they bring to the table, so the energy content, the amino acid content, the calcium, phosphorus, other minerals, vitamins and trace minerals and that's really how we have traditionally evaluated ingredients.
More recently we're coming to understand that ingredients not only supply nutrients but they also can have an impact on the health of the gut of the pig.
For example we can select some ingredients that might help the pig to resist certain infections or we might inadvertently select ingredients that might make a pig more susceptible to certain kinds of infections.
This is a relatively new area of investigation.
We have an awful lot to learn before we can become really adept at doing this but we are getting enough information that we can start to consider this in the way we formulate diets for pigs.
Dr. Patience notes the functional properties of certain ingredients and the health benefits they provide will help in reducing the need for antibiotics.
Source : farmscape