Long-standing swine feeding practices could be ripe for radical change based on new findings from a University of Manitoba study.
Weaned pig diets could safely in-clude up to 25 percent canola meal, according to the study.
“We realize that these results are quite radical in the sense that they go against everything that we’ve be-lieved in, in the past or the industry practice,” said U of M swine nutritionist Martin Nyachoti.
The industry standard is that hog rations contain no more than five percent canola meal, but Nyachoti and his team tested that.
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The team found that weaned pigs could maintain high growth when consuming up to 25 percent canola meal in their diets.
Nyachoti compared canola meal with a control of soybean meal and found similar average daily gains.
A high percentage of canola meal has been thought to reduce gains due to several factors, according to feed experts.
“I think in the past, there may have been definite issues with high levels of canola meal both from palatability and anti-nutritional factors such as glucosinolates,” said Drew Woods, a swine nutritionist at Shur-Gain.
“But my understanding is with the new cultivars and varieties that exist, a lot of those previous issues have been removed. So I’m of the train of thought that you just let the animals tell you (what they need).”
A higher percentage of canola meal could mean lower feed costs for hog producers.
“You could very likely lower your feed costs by including canola meal and displacing out some of the soybean meal,” said Brittany Dyck, canola meal manager with the Canola Council of Canada.
“Soybean meal always trades at a higher cost than canola meal and also if you’re in Western Canada, where canola meal is likely to be more abundant than soybean, you would have ready access to canola meal.”
Producers are slowly coming around to this idea.
“We’re not running out and buying canola meal because we already were anyways,” said Ernie Patrick, manager of feed and environmental services at Olymel.
Nyachoti is working on replicating the initial trials on a larger scale so the industry can use these findings as a base.
“I think what it means for the industry is that, going forward, we’ll be able to put some old perceptions behind us and really allow diets to be formulated based on energy digestible amino acids, and allow canola meal to come in at higher levels than it previously was at all phases of production for pigs,” said Dyck.
