The scale of pork production in the US is such that reducing the average pig’s time on feed by just one day can put $76 million back into pork producers’ pockets. Animal scientists at Auburn University are exploring ways to reduce time on feed by studying pigs’ nutritional needs during a critical time in their development: weaning.
A team of researchers at the Alabama Agricultural Experiment Station received $300,000 from the National Institute of Food and Agriculture to study amino acid usage in recently weaned pigs. The results of the study could lead to more effective diets for pigs in this stage and less feed expenses for pork producers.
Prior to weaning, a pig gets nearly all its nutrition from its mother’s milk. After weaning, it is sustained by specially formulated diets. However, due to the stress of weaning, pigs often will not eat, or eat less than usual, for several days after being separated from their mothers. The result is a pronounced slowdown in the pig’s growth and a longer time spent on feed.
“The diets we feed to newly weaned pigs assumes that they’re eating, and it assumes that they’re growing well, but that’s not the case a lot of the time,” said Marko Rudar, assistant professor of animal sciences at Auburn University and the grant team’s head.
Rudar and his team will study pigs’ usage of two sulfur amino acids: methionine and cysteine. While methionine is an essential amino acid because pigs are not able to produce it themselves, cysteine is usually considered a non-essential amino acid because pigs can produce it from methionine. Because pigs make cysteine on their own rather than consuming it via their diet, researchers studying pig nutrition have paid little attention to it.
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