One of the most critical times in hog production is at the nursery pig stage when piglets are transitioning from sow to self-feeders and waterers. A common strategy for early nursery pigs or mid-nursery pigs is to acidify the feed, which decreases the pH going into the stomach. Based on producer questions, researchers at NOVUS conducted studies recently to determine if there are additional benefits to using either an organic acid blend in the feed or the water on top of a free benzoic acid program.
“In those young animals it’s hard enough to get them started on feed or water, so any little bit of nutrition you can give to them that they are drawn to, whether it’s in a water acid blend like Activate WD Max Nutritional Feed Acid or a blend like Activate DA Nutritional Feed Acid in the feed, helps prepare those pigs for the next couple of weeks in the nursery,” says Alex Hintz, DVM and technical services manager with NOVUS. “Both these nutrition solutions contain methionine source HMTBa, providing a two-for-one benefit. I think that’s a lot of what the Activate DA or the Activate WD Max are doing, beyond the acidification properties themselves. It’s that two-pronged approach, the nutrition aspect, as well as that acidification for pathogen control and for intestinal integrity.”
Researchers kept the study simple with a direct control versus the additive plus control, in both feed and water applications. The treatments were used only during the first 14 days then the pigs were tracked during the entire nursery period.
“We saw above two percentage points increase in survivability and high-value pigs with the feed additive plus free benzoic acid,” Hintz says. “We saw above three percentage points improvement in the water acid blend plus the free benzoic acid in those pigs. Both of them were shown to enhance survivability and improve survivability and delivered more high-value pigs at the end of the nursery period.”
Another area of benefit to producers is the methionine component of Activate DA and Activate WD Max can replace the methionine in a ration, which could save money on diet formulations, Hintz adds.
“You can do a direct methionine replacement with that and cut off some of the cost of the additive itself,” he explains. “That’s really helped producers and customers who have taken this program and used it in their feed to offset that cost while getting the payback at the end of the day on immortality savings or on a growth performance savings.”
Hintz and his colleague, Jesús Acosta, Ph.D., global swine research manager for NOVUS, will present these study findings in addition to others during the 16th International Symposium on Digestive Physiology of Pigs May 21–23 in Lake Geneva, Wis.
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