Several new research studies have demonstrated the mechanisms behind branched-chain amino acid transporters and nutrient utilization in pigs. Better understanding this concept can be crucial in some diets due to the high leucine content of dried distillers grains. In this episode, I talk with Dr. Woongbi Kwon about his study delving deeper into this topic, feeding elevated levels of leucine and tryptophan to study the effects on growth performance and serotonin metabolism.
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When it comes to different pig preweaning parameters, which ones are the most important? That is a question that has had a variety of answers over the years, and hopefully after this study we can better understand exactly how large of an effect each parameter has. In this episode, I talk with Dr. Mark Knauer about his study with over 3,000 pigs that used linear modeling to measure how much of the piglet variation was explained by a variety of different preweaning parameters.
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Vitamins can sometimes be overlooked due to their cheap and easy inclusion in swine diets. With stabilization issues under certain conditions, we tend to put more in the diet than is required, but how much extra is everyone adding? In this episode with Dr. Jamil Faccin, we talk about his survey of many large swine facilities in the United States and how he compared their vitamin inclusion levels to see what the averages may tell us.
Meet the guest: Dr. Jamil Faccin graduated in Veterinar...
Transitioning the weanling pig onto solid feed presents several nutritional challenges, as the body has not been producing all of the required digestive enzymes until this point. In this episode, I talk with Brenda Christensen about her study testing different forms of creep feed and nursery diets with varying protein sources to see how it affects the mucosal enzyme activity and the intestinal morphology in piglets.
Meet the guest: Brenda Christensen is a Ph.D. student at the University ...
With the looming threat of ASF and other issues potentially disrupting our normal feed supply chain, we must be prepared and have a proper plan to hold off our pigs until we can get more feed while avoiding the onset of gastric ulcers. In this episode, I talk with Kayla Miller about two studies she ran determining the efficacy of different feed supply management strategies and the effects of particle size and feed disruptions on the development of gastric ulcers.
Meet the guest: Kayla M...
We continue to adjust amino acid requirements to meet the needs of sows for growth or protein synthesis. Being able to model those requirements is a critical piece of a nutritionist’s job. That is the focus of Christian Ramirez’s work, and he and I talk about it in this episode to discuss how the performance of a gestating sow could improve with additional nutrients.
Meet the guest: Christian Ramirez is a Ph.D. student at South Dakota State University. He received his M.S. in Animal Scie...
Morning - your weekly 9-minute swine nutrition research update is here: As we continue to genetically select for sows to produce more pigs, it is important that we ensure they are getting adequate milk from the sow, but there may be more ways to help this other than maximizing feed intake during lactation. In this episode, I talk with Dr. Chantal Farmer about her recent study on increasing lysine in the gestation period to further increase mammary development in gestating gilts and hopefully con...