Fortification Of NexGen^® Starters With Kent Natural Yeast

By James Smith, Ph.D., Senior Technical Swine Nutritionist, and Michael Edmonds, Ph.D., Vice President, Swine and Poultry Nutrition

Developing nursery feeding programs to enhance the growth, efficiency and health of nursery pigs is critical in helping producers raise more efficient pork. One area of research with pig starters involves evaluating new ingredients. We tested an ingredient called Kent Natural Yeast (KNY). Kent Natural Yeast is a high-quality brewer’s yeast which contains a unique strain of Saccharomyces cerevisiae used in the beer brewing process. This fermentation procedure from human-grade breweries is followed by a special drying process. Kent Natural Yeast contains a natural source of minerals and vitamins to further supplement pig’s diets.

The experimental procedure consisted of four levels of KNY along with one competitive product. We utilized 480 pigs with 80 pigs and 10 pens representing each treatment. The average initial starting weight was 14.2 lbs with the test being conducted for 34 days. Pigs were fed the NexGen HP 12-17 diet for the first 7 days post-weaning followed by grind and mix diets involving NexGen 17-40 Mixer for days 7-14 and then diets made with NexGen 25-40 Mixer from days 14-34. The diets were all medicated with Denagard™ at 35 grams/ton.

EFFECT OF KENT NATURAL YEAST AND A COMPETITIVE PRODUCT ON NURSERY PERFORMANCE AND ECONOMICS DURING DAYS 0 – 34

Compared to pigs fed the control diets, the pigs on diets with the 1X level of KNY had a numerical improvement in gain with a lower cost/lb of gain which resulted in an improvement in net return of $0.60/pig. Pigs fed the other three levels of KNY had similar growth to pigs on the control diets and with very slight improvements in feed efficiencies (2X, 6X) resulted in net return values that were a few cents higher than those pigs on the control diets. Pigs fed the diets with the competitive product had higher cost/lb of gains which resulted in a net return value that was $0.25/pig less than those on the control diets. There were trends for pigs fed the diets with a 1X level of KNY to have a lower cost of gain (1.7 cents) along with a greater net return value of $0.85/pig when compared to those on the competitive product.

SUMMARY

Because the performance and economics favored the pigs on the NexGen diets with the 1X level of added KNY, this fortification will become a standard for the NexGen starter program.

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