Productive, Physiological, and Environmental Implications of Reducing Crude Protein Content in Swine Diets: A Review.

Animals (Basel)

Departamento de Ciencia Animal, Universidad de Lleida, Av. Rovira Roure 191, 25198 Lleida, Spain.

Published: October 2024

Pig production is one of the most important providers of high-quality proteins and amino acids (AAs) to human nutrition. In this sector, feeding has an important economic and environmental impact. A strategy to reduce production costs and negative sustainability effects is reducing dietary crude protein (CP) contents with or without AA supplementation. This review addresses the different aspects related to this strategy, particularly the effects on growth performance and pork traits in piglets and growing and finishing pigs, as well as the physiological molecular mechanisms' underlying effects. Insight is also provided into the effects of dietary CP reduction on the productive performances of alternative pig production systems and breeding boars and sows. Finally, an overview is conducted on the effects of dietary CP reduction on ammonia, odor, and greenhouse gas emissions arising from pig production systems. Overall, CP reduction may lead to production losses, albeit they can be, to some extent, hindered by adequate AA supplementation. Losses are particularly relevant during the post-weaning phase, whereas in finishing pigs, it may bring additional benefits, such as high intramuscular fat contents in some markets or improved gut barrier function with benefits to the animals' health and welfare, as well as decreased ammonia emissions to the environment.

Download full-text PDF

Source
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11544889PMC
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ani14213081DOI Listing

Publication Analysis

Top Keywords

pig production
12
crude protein
8
finishing pigs
8
effects dietary
8
dietary reduction
8
production systems
8
production
5
effects
5
productive physiological
4
physiological environmental
4

Similar Publications

Want AI Summaries of new PubMed Abstracts delivered to your In-box?

Enter search terms and have AI summaries delivered each week - change queries or unsubscribe any time!