March 3, 2004

Alternative Swine Feed In High Fat Oats

A new fat out could turn out to be an alternative feed for swine, trials conducted at the University of Saskatchewan's Department of Animal and Poultry Science showed.

Oats are generally not used as swine feed because its high fibre content contains significantly lower energy value compared to either wheat or barley. However, this new oat, developed by the University's Crop Development Centre, contains increased fat content.

Swine nutritionist Dr. Phil Thacker says, although the crop is not yet commercially available, researchers were able to access a large enough sample to conduct a full scale grower finisher trial.

"We did a feeding trial where we took pigs from approximately 20 kilograms up to market weight. We measured nutrient digestibility where we measured the digestibility of nutrients such as the dry matter, the crude protein and the energy.

Typically we noticed about a five percent improvement in the digestibility of those nutrients with the high fat oat verses the normal oat.

We also measured pig performance and we got significantly better daily gains and improved feed conversion.

In fact, interestingly the high fat oat produced performance in the pigs that would be similar to a barley diet.

That's very interesting because we haven't tended to use oats at all in pig diets and now, with this oat, it certainly provides an alternative for producers.

We also looked at the carcass traits of the pigs and there was no detrimental effects of the higher fat on the carcass quality of the pigs".

The new breeding line will require further testing before it becomes commercially available.

Dr. Thacker says, once the high fat oat is available, it'll offer grain producers another cropping alternative and pig producers another alternative feed.