Improve your risk management with enzymes

Dr. Gwendolyn Jones, Danisco Animal Nutrition

The pig industry carries more uncertainty than in previous years, with higher volatility particularly in relation to input costs. Enzymes offer an excellent tool to increase the flexibility of using cheaper feed raw materials in pig diet formulations.

The ability to be more flexible with diet formulations enables companies to manage the risk of raw material price volatility and become more profitable.

Replacing major feed ingredients in US type diets with cheaper raw materials such as wheat, DDGS, wheat middlings, and corn germ meal can significantly reduce raw material costs and enable a competitive advantage in the market. However, these higher fiber ingredients can have a negative impact on nutrient digestibility and performance unless the correct adaptations are made to the diet formulation.

Many factors affecting variability in nutrient digestibility can be alleviated by appropriate enzyme supplementation. Choosing enzymes and including them at the correct levels allows producers/feed companies to switch to alternative cheaper energy and protein sources and capitalize on lower priced ingredients. This flexibility reduces the financial risk of being reliant on one feed source without compromising animal performance or health.

Formulating diets with wheat

As a result of the increasing price of corn, more and more wheat has crept into US pig diet formulations in an effort to reduce feed costs.

Increased wheat usage leads to higher levels of dietary fiber, in particular arabinoxylans (Table 1), and although it is a common ingredient in pig diets in Northern Europe, Australia and Canada, new or occasional users need to be aware of, and account for, the effect that higher fiber can have on animal performance. The concentration of digestible energy in wheat is highly variable due to its high fiber content; subsequently consistency in pig performance can be affected unless the correct enzymes are incorporated.

Table 1: Adding alternative ingredients to corn increases arabinoxylan content in pig diets

Xylanase enzymes will reduce feed variability by degrading cell wall components (such as arabinoxylans) and release encapsulated nutrients, maximizing the availability of dietary energy and protein. The higher the level of arabinoxylans in the diet, the greater the effect that fiber degrading enzymes will have on the feed substrate; therefore, xylanase enzyme products will have a high value in feed formulated with wheat based/wheat derived ingredients. Numerous trials with the xylanase based enzyme solution Porzyme 9302 have shown improved uniformity in pigs fed wheat based diets (Figure 1).

Figure 1: Coefficient of variation (%) for final weight in piglets (Partridge 2008)

Figure 1: Coefficient of variation (%) for final weight in piglets (Partridge 2008)

1411 piglets
Average start weight 8kg
Average end weight 26kg

Adding a xylanase based enzyme to piglet diets improved the coefficient of variation by 31% on average