Environmental test on pig feed additive
Researchers at the Prairie Swine Centre in Canada will examine the environmental benefits of using ractopamine used to improve the growth performance of grower and finisher pigs.
Ractopamine, developed by Elanco Animal Health and marketed under the trade name Paylean, is a dietary supplement which promotes lean meat production while inhibiting fat production in pigs.
Conference
Prairie Swine Centre Research Assistant Dr Denise Beaulieu told those attending the 2007 Focus on the Future Conference last week in Saskatoon.
Beaulieu said by using an ingredient like ractopamine, because it improves the efficiency of pork production, the number of nutrients in the manure is decreased.
The same applies for nitrogen and phosphorus output and perhaps the amounts of carbon dioxide and ammonia, which are greenhouse gases.
Efficiency and utilisation
Two experiments will be carried out. The first experiment will look at feed intake, the nutrients in the feed and the nutrients retained in the animal to know the efficiency of utilization of those nutrients.
Another experiment will be looking at feed intake versus the nutrients that are lost in either the manure or the urine to determine the outputs and inputs and again the efficiency of utilisation of those nutrients.
The project is scheduled to get underway within the next month or so and is expected to take about eight months to complete.
Related website:
• Prairie Swine Centre
• Elanco
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