New Swine Vitamin Recommendations for More Productive and Sustainable Farming

In Brief

Most vitamin recommendations from international scientific associations were created more than 20 years ago, but today’s livestock industry has little in common with the industry as it was then.
Nutritional requirements must change to address genetic selection, and modern nutrition, sanitary and environmental conditions, as well as regulatory changes.
The right vitamins in the right amounts for an animal’s lifestage improve both performance and sustainability.

Addressing the challenges of today and tomorrow

Continuous development in the field of animal nutrition is essential to meet current and future challenges such as replacement of antibiotics, higher incidence of more aggressive animal diseases and a growing focus on sustainable farming.

The right levels of quality and sustainable vitamins will help farmers improve animal health, wellbeing and performance, while also protecting the environment, succeeding in a dynamic and ever-changing global market, enhancing both profits and environmental sustainability.

Vitamins play a decisive role in both human and animal nutrition. As organic catalysts present in small quantities in most foods, they are essential for the normal functioning of metabolic and physiological processes. Vitamin requirements in animals are dynamic: they vary according to new genotypes, levels of yield and production systems. The inclusion of a nutritional programme with appropriate levels of vitamins in an animal's diet not only allows to completely realise its genetic potential but, at the same time, improves various aspects related to health and well-being, its productivity and the ultimate quality of the food produced, be it meat, milk, or eggs. Healthier animals will produce more and healthier food.

Optimum Vitamin Nutrition® (OVN™) is a dynamic concept which regularly review and update vitamin supplementation in feed. OVN™ is about feeding animals high-quality vitamins, produced with the lowest environmental footprint, in the right amounts, appropriate to their life stage and growing conditions, to optimize Animal Health and Welfare, Animal Performance and Food Quality & Food Waste.

Why vitamin recommendations for swine need to change

Vitamin recommendations from international scientific associations such as NRC and ARC were developed to prevent nutritional deficiencies. Some of the studies on which they are based are more than 20 or 30 years old. Thanks to improvements in genetic selection, nutrition, sanitary and environmental conditions, today’s livestock industry has little in common with the industry as it was—not only at that time but even just a few years ago. For example, sows’ performance parameters have improved 1% to 2% per year in the last five years as reported by Pig Champ, which analyzed data from hundreds of commercial pig farms (Figure 1). In the same period, mortality and culling rates of sows and gilts improved (+9.7% and +0.8% per year respectively), indicating that especially in breeder animals, more attention to lifetime performance must be paid, and vitamins can play an important role. Genetic companies are forecasting additional performance improvements (Figure 2), of even higher order of magnitude. Accordingly, vitamin nutrition guidelines will also require continuous adjustment.

Figure 1. Performance of sows in US swine commercial farms in the period 2016 – 2021 (Source: Pig Champ, 2022)

Figure 2. Average performance of PIC pigs in 2022 and 2032 forecast (Source: Saskia Bloemhof-Abma (PIC), AMVEC - Monterrey, Mexico, 2022 )

Thanks to improvements in genetic selection, nutrition, sanitary and environmental conditions, today’s livestock has little in common with the industry as it was 20 or 30 years ago, when many vitamin guidelines were created.

Likewise, legislative changes are limiting the use of compounds such antibiotics and growth promoters, substances which until recently had formed a habitual part of animals' diets, including those of the animal trials on which vitamins requirements were based on. At the same time many countries are developing new rules on animal welfare and environmental protection which will entail less "intensiveness" in the livestock industry, with the aim of improving the health and well-being of the animals and sustainability of the planet. Meanwhile, our farmers need to be competitive about livestock productivity (weight gain, conversion indices, final weight of the animal, mortality, etc.) to be able to face strong international competition where free trade is a tangible reality.

Nutrition programs for farm animals, including vitamin supplements, need to be adjusted in a manner consistent with improved animal management techniques and genetic development.

This adjustment should be based on the most recent scientific studies, besides considering practical experience from farmers and feed producers as well as nutritional recommendations from breeding companies which have the best knowledge on the animals they produce.

Science, industry expertise and vitamin levels

Testing different levels of individual vitamins is one way to define the optimal use of vitamins in feed. Recent dsm-firmenich OVN™ webinars have reviewed experimental data extracted from more than 50 papers on individual vitamins published during the last 10 years (information available through the authors). Some examples of this research are in Figures 2-6.

Figure 3. Average daily gain (g) and Gain:Feed in weaned piglets from 8 to 14 days post-weaning of age, fed diets with different levels of vitamin A (Source: Wang et al., 2020)

Figure 4. Effect of 25OHD3 (HyD®) in sows’ gestation and lactation diet on performance parameters of pre-weaning piglets (Source: Upadhaya et al., 2022)

Figure 5. Effect of vitamin E in sows’ diet (last week of gestation and lactation) improved a-tocopherol concentration, immunoglobulin concentration and antioxidant capacity in piglets’ plasma (Source: Wang et al., 2017)

Figure 6. Effect of 25OHD3 (HyD®) in sows’ gestation and lactation diet on bone mineral content and bone strength parameters of pre-weaning piglets (Source: Zhang et al., 2019)

Nevertheless, vitamins play complementary catalytic roles on important metabolic processes with multiple interactions among them. Therefore, we might not see the full effect of increasing levels of individual vitamins if levels of other vitamins are a limiting factor and we must better understand and quantify the effect of good levels of all vitamins in the same diet since probably we will not find an additive effect of all benefits seen in the individual vitamin trials.

Poulsen and Krogsdahl (2018) compared the OVN™ supplementation levels against the Danish standard recommendations (Figure 7) in 1,250 weaning piglets from 7 to 30 kg of weight and concluded that the OVN™ supplementation significantly improved daily weight gain, feed conversion ratio and production value (Figure 8).

Figure 7. Vitamin supplementation level in 7 to 30 kg piglets’ diet (Source: Poulsen and Krogsdahl, 2018)

Figure 8. Effect of OVN™ levels on performance of 7 to 30 kg piglets’ (Source: Poulsen and Krogsdahl, 2018)

Hinson et al. (2022) confronted the average vitamin supplementation levels used by swine producers in the United States, which are close to OVN™ recommendations, and a reduced vitamin level, either to NRC recommendations for vitamins A, D, E and K (NRC, Nutrient requirements of swine, 2012) or half (or even lower) the industry average for B-vitamins. Feeding the lower vitamin levels to sows (n=245) tended to reduce litter performance and applying the same strategy to nursery piglets (n=765) significantly reduced their performance (Figure 9). Moreover, the authors observed that the reduced vitamin supplementation decreased circulating and stored vitamin levels in both sows – with potential negative impact on long-term reproductive performance – and nursery piglets.

Figure 9. Effect of OVN™ levels on performance of 7 to 30 kg piglets’ (Source: Hinson et al., 2022)

More information on latest recommendations from some swine genetic companies, scientific references used in the vitamin review and detailed information on the new 2022 OVN™ Guidelines for Swine are available in Figures 10 to 15 and at the OVN™ Swine page.

Figure 10. Recommended vitamin levels for Swine Breeders 2022 Replacement gilts (IU or mg kg/feed)

Figure 11. Recommended vitamin levels for Swine Breeders 2022 Sows – Gestation (IU or mg kg/feed)

Figure 12. Recommended vitamin levels for Swine Breeders 2022 Sows –Lactation (IU or mg kg/feed)

Figure 13. Recommended vitamin levels for Swine Breeders 2022 Boars (IU or mg kg/feed)

Figure 14. Recommended vitamin levels for Fattening pigs 2022 Pre-starter and Starter (IU or mg kg/feed)

Figure 15. Recommended vitamin levels for Fattening pigs 2022 Grower and Finisher (IU or mg kg/feed)

Correct vitamin formulation adds value to feed

To meet the highest quality standards, nutritional and legal requirements for animal feed production, premix producers and feed manufacturers need to handle additives safely and with great precision.

Vitamins are rarely added as pure substances to feed because they are often degraded due to instability towards oxygen, light or temperature: as such they are not suited to the rigors of the feed manufacturing processes and their handling properties can be poor. Therefore, they must be properly formulated as feed additives to be added into premix, feed or drinking water before the animal access them.

It is about mixing grams or milligrams in one ton of feed with animals eating grams feed per day: certainly not an easy task. The best way to do it is following strict product formulation fundamentals where the high safety and quality of both the active substance and raw materials, combined with appropriate formulation technology, result in product forms consistently delivering an optimal combination of desirable characteristics.

For maximum efficacy feed additives like vitamins should be formulated for:

low dust and best handling: safe for workers
good flowability: more efficient dosing operations and less product losses
best homogeneity in premix and feed
superior stability in premix and feed: right daily intake of nutrients by animals
high bioavailability: allowing an efficient absorption and best biological use by the animal
manufactured with the lowest environmental footprint for more sustainable farming

The final goal is to achieve the best balance between handling, mixing, stability and bioavailability depending on the specific application challenges that each nutrient may face.

Figure 16 illustrates a recent example on an important industry concern: large overages (up to 100%) may be required to match vitamin A nutritional requirements in poultry feed if not-stable enough vitamin products are used, as seen in this trial run by an independent premixer in Scandinavia.

Figure 16. Vitamin A stability in pelleted feed (Source: EU Premixer data,2020, unpublished)

Improving sustainability alongside performance

The right levels of high-quality, sustainable micro-nutrients provided to feed millers, integrators and farmers can help them improve animal health, wellbeing, and performance, while also protecting the environment, succeeding in a dynamic and ever-changing global market, enhancing both profits and environmental sustainability.

dsm-firmenich, as part of our sustainability commitment, has developed Environmental Vitamin Product Declarations (EPD) which transparently provides environmental footprint information to support purchasing decisions and to support feed millers, integrators, and farmers to better assess product sustainability. These environmental product reports may be soon part of the industry specifications according to their individual needs and commitment to sustainability in the feed and food chain.

Reducing the carbon footprint of vitamin and other feed additive operations, enable feed millers, integrators, and farmers to become more sustainable, reduce their risk profile and to potentially benefit from value created from future carbon tax savings (Figure 17).

Figure 17. Potential CO2 emission savings coming from different vitamins product forms (Source: dsm-firmenich data, 2022, unpublished)

Conclusion

Supporting swine diets with appropriate vitamins help make farming more sustainable. Optimum Vitamin Nutrition® (OVN™) is about feeding animals high quality vitamins, produced with the lowest environmental footprint, in the right amounts, appropriate to their life stage and growing conditions, to optimize animal health and welfare, animal performance and food quality and waste.

Nutrition programmes for farm animals, including vitamin supplements, need to be adjusted in a manner consistent with improved animal management techniques, new health challenges and genetic development which have supported the feed industry to achieve annual productivity improvements of +1-2%.

Testing different levels of individual vitamins as well as combination of all vitamins versus current vitamin blends used by the industry seem to be a consistent strategy to review and adjust optimal use of vitamins in feed.

Once vitamin levels are defined, maximum attention must be paid to the use of the right vitamin product forms. This would avoid jeopardizing decisions taken by nutritionists to optimize animal health and production cost of foods of animal origin (meat/egg/milk/fish) with products which might not be stable enough or mixed properly in premix or feed.

It is more essential than ever that nutritionists and purchasers engage in an ongoing dialogue to advance more sustainable farming and improve farmer profitability.

Published on

22 March 2023