Effects of specialty proteins as alternatives to bovine or porcine spray-dried plasma in non-medicated diets fed to weaned pigs housed in an unsanitary environment

Crenshaw, J. D.; Campbell, J. M.; Polo, J.; Stein, H. H.

In Exp. 2, performance of pigs fed the IEGG product was inferior to SDBP and did not differ from the other protein sources. The IEGG product used in Exp. 2 was spray-dried whole egg product (IEGG) derived from hens strategically vaccinated against various strains of Escherichia coli, Lawsonia intracellularis, rotavirus, coronavirus, Clostridia sp., and Salmonella sp., to produce specific IgY antibodies against these pathogens. Reasons for lack of a growth response to feeding the IEGG product are unknown but may have been related to either absence or overabundance of specific pathogens in the environment for which the specific IgY antibodies from the IEGG product could potentially impact. Pathogen-specific challenge studies have indicated similar improvements in performance for pigs fed hyperimmunized egg yolk products compared with pigs fed SDPP when pigs were challenged with pathogens common to the specific IgY antibodies contained in the egg product (Owusu-Asiedu et al., 2002) . However, like Exp. 2 with SDBP, under non-specific pathogen challenge with unsanitary pens, pigs fed diets containing SDPP had improved growth performance compared with that of pigs fed a control diet, and a hyper-immunized egg yolk product did not increase performance over the control group .