Kent Nutrition Group (KNG) continues to uncover dietary options to help manage market hog growth rate and weight gain to help keep pigs at viable weights until packing plant capacity is available.
As processing plants continue to face pressure to return to full capacity, pork producers need ways to help manage their finishing hogs’ weight gain. In May, KNG shared their research findings from a trial where an amino acid imbalance using amino acid DL-Methionine showed finishing hogs experienced little to no weight gain with a significant decrease in feed intake. Building on these positive results, they extended their work with an additional 13-day trial to evaluate corn and low protein diets with various levels of DL-Methionine.
“After our initial trial was completed, we were still waiting to ship our pigs,” said Dr. Michael Edmonds, KNG vice president of swine and poultry nutrition. “This situation provided us an opportunity to extend our study and see if we could develop more viable options for holding market hogs.”
In the 13-day trial, various levels of DL-Methionine were evaluated in two diets – corn and low protein. The hogs were weighed at seven days, showing modest gains up to 1.25 lb/day. From Day 7-13, DL-Methionine levels were slightly increased by approximately 20 percent over the initial levels. Growth rates and feed intakes were each further reduced in both the corn and low protein diets.
“Our results from Phase 2 confirmed the effect of DL-Methionine we experienced in our earlier work,” Edmonds said. “Depending on the diet, we saw further reduction in growth rate with weight gains from 0.6 to 1.0 lb/head/day. These amino acid imbalance studies provide cost effective options for swine producers as they manage their hogs until market conditions improve or packing plant capacity is made available.”
Along with sharing their results, Kent has a solution for producers who need to hold their pigs – NexGen Hold-Pak, developed from this research as an easy-to-use, all-in-one, nutritional supplement. Contact Kent for purchase information at kentfeeds.com. Specific Phase 2 results and trial diets can be referenced in the KNG Nutrition Note, Evaluation of Amino Acid Imbalances in Corn and Low Protein Diets in Reducing Growth Rate and Feed Intakes in Late Finishing Pigs, located on kentfeeds.com.
