Presenting new swine research at ASAS / ADSA Midwest Meeting

In association with a range of academic and research organisations, we will be presenting a suite of new presentations and posters at the ASAS Midwest Section / ADSA Midwest Branch Joint Meeting in Omaha, USA, from 11th to 13th March.

Conducted in conjunction with independent institutes including Newcastle University, the University of Illinois, Iowa State University and the Bangkok Animal Research Center, the studies investigate the effect of nutritional solutions on a range of swine performance measures, spanning animal performance and effects on digesta characteristics, as well as oxidative status in the gastrointestinal tract. 

Our North America Swine Manager Dr. Pete Wilcock explains that the studies being presented reveal new insights relating to existing nutritional strategies – as well as uncovering wholly new concepts in feed ingredient combination:

“Study results can be used to fine tune existing programs – for example, an experiment looking at the requirements for standardised total tract digestible (STTD) calcium was conducted in nursery pigs, allowing the optimal level to be determined. With STTD calcium gaining more traction in the industry, understanding the requirements on this basis is becoming more important.

“Research to be shared at the conference has also focused on the use of xylo-oligosaccharides in combination with a xylanase, which is an entirely new paradigm in gut functionality. The results – which show improvements in daily gain and feed efficiency as well as beneficial changes in microbiota development – should provide valuable insights to producers and nutritionists.

“It was noted in finisher pig research that the use of the combination of xylo-oligosaccharides in combination with xylanase outperformed the xylanase only treatment. This improvement increased with age and this could perhaps be associated with modifications in the microbiome favouring fibre digestion – this is something that we are looking to investigate in further studies.”