By characterizing the nutritive value of feed ingredients, swine nutritionists hope to lower feed costs while improving productivity and reducing the environmental impact of pork production.
Swine nutritionists from across Canada working on behalf of Swine Innovation Porc are examining the nutritive value of a wide range of feed ingredients.
Dr. Martin Nyachoti, the Head of the Department of Animal Science with the University of Manitoba, says, by characterizing feed ingredients in terms of their nutritive value, scientists hope to lower the cost of production by formulating more cost effective diets.
We know that feed cost is a major expense in commercial pork production and we also know that if pigs don’t utilize the nutrients we put in the feed we can have a significant impact on the environment through the nutrients that are otherwise wasted or excreted through the manure. We do have three main areas, one on feed ingredient evaluation, we have some work on nutrient digestibility and we also have activities on detoxification of mycotoxins that will happen here. There are different studies that will be carried out in these different areas looking at detailed experiments in each one of those areas.
What we hope to achieve here is that we’re going to generate new information on nutritive value of a wide range of feed ingredients that can be used by swine nutritionists, by the feed industry to formulate more effective diets for pigs. The information we generate, we hope will become very important to people who are involved in formulating diets for pigs in Canada.
~ Dr. Martin Nyachoti, University of Manitoba
Dr. Nyachoti says the goal is to improve the efficiency and the cost of production and also have a positive impact on the environment.
