UK: Soybean meal can mitigate respiratory disease impact on pig performance

Soybean meal (SBM) has long played a role in swine diets as an efficient amino acid and energy source. Increasingly, research is revealing its health-boosting properties due to an abundance of functional molecules and bioactive peptides that occur during digestion. R. Dean Boyd, PhD, Animal Nutrition Research, LLC, was involved in the first study (2010) that illustrated the positive effects of SBM on growing pigs encountering swine respiratory disease (SRD) complex. The research continues and he offers additional insights here. Q: How did you discover the disease-mitigating effects of SBM in pigs? Boyd: During a research project evaluating low-SBM (typical) and high-SBM (38% to 50%) diets on growing pigs, the animals encountered an active SRD infection, consisting of porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus (PRRSv), influenza and Mycoplasma hyopneumoniae (Mhp). SRD triggers systemic inflammation and causes average daily gain (ADG) and feed conversion rate (FCR) to ...