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 conclusion, under the conditions of non-use of medication in feed or by other routes and unsanitary pens, diets with different levels of activated porcine plasma did not improve performance of pigs compared to diets with soy protein concentrate and neither soy protein concentrate or activated porcine plasma in diets provided equivalent performance to diets with spray-dried porcine plasma in Exp. 1. In Exp. 2, activated porcine plasma, enzymatically hydrolyzed soy and yeast protein, spray dried whole eggs from hyper-immunized hens, or a combination of fish meal, activated porcine plasma, and enzymatically hydrolyzed soy and yeast protein did not improve performance of pigs compared to diets with soy protein concentrate and none of the specialty proteins used in Exp. 2 provided equivalent performance to a diet containing spray-dried bovine plasma. Therefore, we were not able to confirm the hypothesis that growth performance of weaned pigs housed in unsanitary conditions and fed non-medicated diets containing the tested specialty proteins were equivalent to that of pigs fed diets containing either spray-dried porcine or bovine plasma.