Animal nutritionists in the future will focus not just on the amount of protein or energy of a feed ingredient, but the micro-ingredients in the feed that have attributes that can positively impact the animal physiology and metabolism, especially gut health in pigs, said a University of Manitoba professor.
“We always look at macro-contributions of protein energy but these feed ingredients have all these components that if they can be harnessed, they can go a long way of helping us,” said Dr. Martin Nyachoti.
Without the use of antibiotics to treat diarrhea in piglets, nutritionists must look deeper at the micro-nutrients of plants that can help digestion and feed absorption and help young piglets develop an effective immune system.
“Post weaning diarrhea in pigs leads to a lot of economic losses to producers. For many years we have relied on antibiotics to maintain a healthy gut in young animals, but that is not an option any more. There was a need to develop alternative options for managing gut health and function,” he said.
“Intestinal infection has significant effects on diarrhea and growth performance of weaned pigs,” Nyachoti told the Animal Nutrition Conference of Canada.
A healthy gut aids in efficient digestion, increases nutrient absorption, improves immune performance and together they allow for efficient conversion of feed into energy and body mass, better growth rates and improved feed efficiency.
“We know for sure that insoluble fibre, at modest levels, are components of a pigs diet that can prevent ecoli and cause diarrhea. The fibre becomes an alternative attachment site and the bacteria does not attach to the gut and is not able to cause disease.”
Already, research has shown raw potato starch works to help manage gut health. Early research of red osier dogwood and other products are also showing a positive benefit.
With the abundance of barley grown on the prairies, research is also focused on barley which contains fibre and insoluble fibre.
“Can we see if we can use enzyme technology or processing to process the barley into units of components that can be put in the diet at small amounts so they don’t affect feed intake or growth and have benefits of minimizing infections,” he said.
Additional micro-ingredients added to food are not as common in Canada, but they have been used in human and animal agriculture in southeast Asia for centuries and are effective.
“What is lacking is familiarity. In Southeast Asia they have been using these things for many, many years. For them it is easier. In our situation, there is a lot of change in attitudes needed.”

In Canada barley is not used as widely in pig diets. It is used in Europe because producers realize there are benefits of using the ingredients.
“Now we are trying to look at the functional aspects of these ingredients. That is why we are working on barley.” •
— By Mary MacArthur