ISSUE FOCUS 34 FEED & ADDITIVE MAGAZINE November 2024 “Generally, the term ‘robust piglet’ is considered important since we have to ensure that the animals have a higher resilience to stress. This allows them to be less sensitive to pathogens and other challenges, ensuring a better resistance of the young animals. Feed additives play a crucial role in improving this animal resilience.” Early life is considered as a challenging period for all livestock species, including swine. Proper health and growth during this phase are essential to achieve optimal performance later in life. The early life period of piglets consists of many different stressors such as change from milk to solid feed, weaning, and pathogen pressure. For piglets, antimicrobials were commonly used to deal with these challenges, and allow for growth promotion, and pathogen control. However, over recent years, due to the high use of antimicrobials in livestock nutrition, microbial resistance has been on the rise. This has led to pressure to reduce the use of antibiotics. Another approach for antimicrobials to improve intestinal health in piglets, and reduce the incidence of post-weaning diarrhoea, is the use of dietary zinc oxide or high copper levels. In addition to the reduction of antibiotics, several countries are also restricting the use of such high mineral solutions. The European Union has already decided to ban the usage of pharmacological levels of zinc oxide and addition of copper only on low levels to fulfil the animal’s requirements. This leaves the industry with a major challenge to find alternative solutions. Generally, the term ‘robust piglet’ is considered important since we have to ensure that the animals have a higher resilience to stress. This allows them to be less sensitive to pathogens and other challenges, ensuring a better resistance of the young animals. Feed additives play a crucial role in improving this animal resilience. This article will describe three different feed solution areas that can contribute to more robust piglets with optimal health and performance. MINERAL NUTRITION Essential trace minerals play an important role in various physiological processes, contributing to optimal animal health and performance. One of such trace elements is selenium, which is involved (among others) in the antioxidant response and immune functioning, via its incorporation into selenoenzymes. Selenium is naturally present in plant based raw materials, but the selenium level depends on the level of selenium in the soil. This makes the natural selenium levels in raw materials variable and in most cases quite low. Therefore, it is recommended to add additional selenium to the diet to fulfil in the animals’ requirements. When considering different selenium feed additives, ROBUST PIGLETS: FEED SOLUTIONS TO SUPPORT PIGLETS’ HEALTH AND PERFORMANCE Jolien van Soest Global Solution Manager - Mineral Nutrition Orffa
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