The Unique Role Amino Acids Play in Cost Reduction for Swine with ExPress® Soymeal
There are many advantages to amino acids in swine diets that can reduce costs when utilized effectively, but first, what are they? Amino acids are the components of protein and play a crucial role and function in the animal’s body. Amino acids are classified as essential and non-essential, which means that we must be sure that all essential amino acids are provided in the diet because pigs are not able to synthesize them. On the contrary, non-essential amino acids do not need to be added in the daily diet because they can be synthesized through reactions in the pig’s body to build proteins and participate in other important bodily functions.
Previous blogs have addressed the nutritional advantages of ExPress soy meal for swine, but this valuable ingredient offers additional benefits for pigs. At certain stages of growth, such as the neonatal or nursing phase, or under specific physiological conditions, the body may not produce enough of some amino acids, including non-essential ones, making them conditionally essential and limiting.
For example, an adequate amount of dietary arginine is necessary to support the maximum growth, lactation, and reproduction performance of swine. Further, arginine is considered a conditionally essential amino acid that helps to increase the growth of the placenta in gestating gilts and sows, improve embryonic/fetal growth and survival, and reduce the variation in birth weight of litters. This suggests that when conditionally essential amino acid requirements for arginine are met, it can lead to higher litter rates (more piglets per sow) and heavier piglet weight, potentially increasing revenue for pork producers.
The good news is that arginine can be provided by feeding pigs with ExPress® soybean meal, which has higher digestibility of conditionally essential amino acids than solvent-extracted soybean meal, as demonstrated previously. ExPress® soy meal showed an advantage of about 3% units of improvement in the digestibility of conditionally essential amino acids in comparison with the hexane-extracted soybean meal. Indeed, the ileal standardized digestibility of arginine was 3.2%, more than that of hexane-extracted soybean meal.
Using ExPress® soybean meal is important in the first stages of life because of the essential amino acids, like arginine, that it provides in swine diets. Arginine specifically is used to face immunological challenges associated with environmental and dietary changes. When selecting the proper ingredients to formulate swine diets, ExPress® soybean meal provides specific nutrients to swine diets that define pig performance and subsequent profitability in swine operations.
Learn more about improving swine performance at our upcoming Swine Nutrition Webinar on June 17th!
