A swine nutritionist with the University of Saskatchewan says the use of alternative feed ingredients can help pork producers reduce their feed costs while still maintaining animal performance and meat quality.
Pork producers have been expanding their use of the byproducts produced through the processing of various grains and oilseeds.
Dr. Denise Beaulieu, an Assistant Professor Monogastric Nutrition with the University of Saskatchewan's College of Agriculture and Bioresources, says the main reason for this increased reliance on alternative feed ingredients is cost.
Clip-Dr. Denise Beaulieu-University of Saskatchewan:
We can usually get these ingredients at a much lower cost than the primary ingredients and, as we learn more about these ingredients, we are able to incorporate them into our rations with some confidence that we can use them in the rations, use them very cost effectively and maintain performance.
The main alternative ingredients are those that are derived from uses of these ingredients for milling, for example wheat byproducts or for example bioethanol production, so DDGS from the production of bioethanol.
Those are some examples.
The key challenges of using these alternative feed ingredients is probably primarily variability.
They tend to be a little bit variable in terms of quality and the nutrient content.
This is because, as they are obtained from different industries, these might vary slightly themselves so it really important for a producer to have the basic nutrients analyzed when he's using them.
Another challenge could be for example, mycotoxins or antinutrients are often concentrated in these ingredients so there again it would be important for a producer to analyze and make sure that the ingredients that he or she is using are free of those antinutrient factors.
Dr. Beaulieu says even though these ingredients can be a lot cheaper producers need to consider other factors such as the cost of further processing or nutrient analysis.
Source : farmscape