ISSUE FOCUS FEED & ADDITIVE MAGAZINE October 2023 57 a robust health status. But after this high attention to detail, what happens once the pig leaves the nursery and enters grow/finish? WHAT ABOUT FATTENING PIGS? Nutritional strategies are essential in grow finish pigs; the success of balancing feed intake versus feed conversion to deliver high carcass yield will have a significant impact on profitability. Nutritional strategies and phase feeding are also important for good intestinal health. As mentioned at the beginning, many of the tools that a producer would use to help manage efficiency e.g., ractopamine, or to counter poor gut health e.g., antibiotics or antibiotic growth promoters, are no longer available or severely restricted. But the challenges on fattening pig are still present, viral diseases, feed contaminants, environment and bacterial challenges are just a few examples. Typically, the broad range of natural additives we may use in feed or water for piglets to support intestinal health, immunity, etc. are seldom applied in mainstream swine production, with an argument that they are cost prohibitive. Indeed, the focus of additives in the fattening phase, understandably, tends to be feed efficiency rather than health. Yet, during fattening, especially at the end of production is the worst time to lose pigs. As an example, Cornelison et al. (2018) found losses of $8.49 to $29.82/pig due to disease challenges. Improving the health status of the pig can reduce the animals’ susceptibility to disease and potentially mitigate some of the negative impacts of disease in the herd. Therefore, if a natural feed additive can enhance intestinal health and reduce the impact of disease, is it always cost prohibitive? ALL-NATURAL FEED ADDITIVES AND THEIR FIELD APPLICATION Feed additives based on natural compounds are diverse but for clarity, we exclude enzymes from this discussion. The importance of enzymes to improve feed digestibility and nutrient availability is well-documented and the products of enzymatic activity and their potential role as pre- and post-biotics continues to be elucidated. Common natural feed additive ingredients include yeast and yeast cell wall fragments, plant, and plant extracts e.g., essential oils, probiotics, and acids. There are abundant reports in the scientific literature on the efficacy of these ingredients, or limited combinations thereof, for example, enhanced immune status, improved antioxidant capacity or increased feed efficiency in fattening pigs. Comparison between studies is often difficult and further compounded by the physical preparation of the ingredients. The results from controlled laboratory studies often do not translate well to application in the field when conditions are less controlled. Furthermore, such studies do not include a cost-benefit analysis, an essential step in their evaluation for commercial evaluation.
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