Search

Phytase supplementation is widely used throughout the world for enhancing nutrient use efficiencies in pigs, while added chromium has been shown to help stabilize glucose metabolism by enhancing insulin sensitivity. Therefore, the objectives of this metabolism study were to examine the potential synergies of these additives to see if nutrient digestibilities and/or blood metabolites could be improved in grower pigs. A total of 12 Genesus terminal genetics grower pigs (20.7 kg) were allotted randomly in a crossover experiment with 4 periods and 4 dietary treatments based on a 2 × 2 factorial design via 2 groups. This provided 12 replicates per dietary treatment. Treatment (Trt) 1 consisted of a control diet without phytase while Trt 2 had decreased levels of soybean meal, calcium (Ca) and phosphorus (P) with added phytase (1,500 phytase units (FYT)/kg, HiPhorius; dsm-firmenich, Plainsboro, NJ). The nutrient release values for amino acids, calcium and phosphorus were via standard recommendations from dsm-firmenich for the phytase. Treatment 3 consisted of the control diet without phytase with 200 parts per billion (ppb) of added chromium from chromium tripicolinate (Chromax, Kent Nutrition Group, Inc. Muscatine, IA) while Trt 4 consisted of the diets with decreased levels of soybean meal, Ca and P with added HiPhorius (1,500 FYT/kg) and Chromax (200 ppb). With 6 metabolism crates available, 4, 1-wk-long periods were utilized to evaluate each of the 4 treatments with each pig with 2 groups evaluated and pooled for data analysis. The pigs were allowed a 4-d acclimation period followed by a 3-d collection period with the experimental diets fed at 4% body weight each day. Water was administered to each pig at 2.5 times the amount of feed fed each day. On the last day of the collection period, blood samples were collected before the meal (fasting) and then 2 h after the meal (postprandial). There were no significant differences among treatments for both fasting and postprandial glucose and insulin levels. Added phytase resulted in a reduction (P  < 0.05) in fasting blood urea nitrogen (N). Nitrogen digestibility and retention and dry matter (DM) digestibility were all improved (P  < 0.01) with pigs fed supplemental phytase. Supplemental chromium was without effect on any of the N and DM digestibility measurements. These data suggest that supplemental phytase has positive effects on improving N and DM digestibilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Phytase supplementation is widely used in diet formulations to enhance nutrient use efficiency in pigs, while supplemental chromium tripicolinate has been shown to help optimize glucose metabolism by enhancing insulin sensitivity. Therefore, the objectives of this metabolism study were to examine potential synergies of these additives to evaluate if nutrient digestibility and/or blood metabolites could be improved in grower pigs. Grower pigs [n = 6; body weight (BW) = 21.8 ± 0.19 kg; Genesus genetics] were randomly allotted by initial BW to four treatments in a 2 x 2 factorial arrangement of treatments. Treatment (Trt) 1 consisted of a control diet without phytase while Trt 2 had decreased levels of calcium and phosphorus with added phytase (1,500 FYT/kg; HiPhorius; dsm-firmenich, Plainsboro, NJ). Treatment 3 was the control diet without phytase with added chromium from chromium tripicolinate (200 ppb; Chromax, Kent Nutrition Group, Inc., Muscatine, IA) while Trt 4 consisted of the diets with decreased levels of calcium and phosphorus with added HiPhorius (1,500 FYT/kg) and chromium tripicolinate (200 ppb). With six metabolism crates available and four treatment groups, it took a 4-wk duration to allow for each pig to be evaluated on each of the four treatments. The pigs were allowed a 4-d acclimation period followed by a 3-d collection period with the experimental diets fed at 4% BW divided into two meals each day. Water was added at 2.5 times the amount of feed fed each day. A second group of grower pigs (n = 6; BW = 19.6 ± 0.12 kg; Genesus) were utilized following the same procedures as above and pooled with the first group for data analysis. On the last day of the collection period, blood samples were collected before the meal (fasting) and then 2 h after the meal (post-meal). Added phytase resulted in a reduction (P < 0.05) in fasting blood urea nitrogen. Nitrogen digestibility and nitrogen retention were both improved (P < 0.01) with pigs fed supplemental phytase. Furthermore, dry matter digestibility was also improved (P < 0.001) in pigs fed added phytase. Supplemental chromium was without effect on any of the nitrogen and/or dry matter digestibility measurements. These data suggest that supplemental phytase has positive effects by significantly improving nitrogen and dry matter digestibility with no further improvements observed from supplemental chromium. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this study was to determine effects of room temperature and drinker design on growth and water disappearance of growing-finishing pigs (26.9 ± 3.67 to 130.9 ± 5.10 kg live body weight). A split-plot design was used with a 2 × 2 factorial arrangement of treatments: Room Temperature (RT) [Thermoneutral (TN) vs. High (HI); main plot], Drinker Design (DD; Nipple vs. Cup; sub-plot). A total of 316 pigs were used, housed in 32 pens in 4 rooms (8 pens/room; 7 pens of 10 pigs and 1 pen of 9 pigs). Two rooms were on each RT treatment. Room temperature for the TN treatment was constant throughout each day but decreased from 24°C at the start to 20°C and 18°C on d 14 and 45 of the study period, respectively. For the HI treatment, a single, cyclic RT protocol was used throughout the study (30°C from 08:00 to 19:00 h and 20°C from 20:00 to 07:00 h, with 1-h transition periods). Pens had fully-slatted concrete floors and 1 feeder and drinker (either nipple or cup); floor space was 0.67 m2/pig. Pigs had ad libitum access to standard corn-soybean diets, formulated to meet or exceed NRC (2012) nutrient requirements. Water disappearance was measured using a meter fitted to the water line supplying each drinker. There were no interactions (P  > 0.05) between RT and DD treatments. Drinker Design did not affect (P  > 0.05) growth performance; water disappearance was 7.3% greater (P  ≤ 0.05) for Nipple than Cup drinkers. Compared to the TN treatment, the HI treatment had no effect (P  > 0.05) on gain:feed ratio, but resulted in lower (P  ≤ 0.05) average daily gain (6.5%) and average daily feed intake (5.5%) and greater (P  ≤ 0.05) average daily water disappearance (16.8%). These results suggest that both drinker design and RT can affect water disappearance, and that the high, cyclic RT regime used reduced growth performance of growing-finishing pigs. Further research is needed to determine the contribution of water intake and wastage to treatment differences in water disappearance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study was conducted to evaluate the water disappearance of nursery pigs (from weaning to 6 wk post-weaning; 6.4 ± 1.07 to 22.0 ± 3.39 kg live body weight) using a randomized complete block design to compare two Drinker Type treatments: Nipple vs. Cup. A total of 336 pigs housed in 16 pens with 21 pigs per pen in 2 rooms (8 pens per room) were used. Pens had fully-slatted concrete floors; floor space was 0.32 m2/pig and there was one feeder and one drinker per pen. Pigs were fed corn-soybean–based diets formulated to meet or exceed nutrient requirements. Pigs and feeders were weighed at the start and end of the study. Water disappearance was measured using a water-flow meter fitted to the water pipeline supplying the drinker in each pen. For the overall study period, Drinker Type did not affect (P  > 0.05) growth performance; however, average daily water disappearance was greater (P  < 0.05) for Nipple than Cup drinkers (2.74 and 2.25 liters/d, respectively; SEM = 0.139). Water to feed disappearance ratio was greater (P  < 0.05) for the Nipple than the Cup treatment (5.23 vs. 4.22 liters:kg, respectively; SEM = 0.263). These results suggest that water disappearance from nipple drinkers was greater than for cup drinkers. The lack of an effect of Drinker Type treatment on pig growth performance suggests that the treatment difference for water disappearance was most likely due to greater water wastage for the nipple drinkers rather than any effect on water intake per se. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]