European rapeseed cake, a good alternative to American soybean in pig feed

The Animal Nutrition program of the Institute for Agrifood Research and Technology (IRTA) has participated in the European Feed-a-Gene project, carrying out studies for the valorization of European rapeseed cake for feeding pigs. Two technologies were used to process and increase the protein content of the rapeseed cake, and this was subsequently evaluated in pigs, demonstrating better results in terms of feed efficiency during fattening, being able to consider a valid alternative to replace soy in diets for pigs: Although rapeseed meal is increasingly produced in Europe, its use compared to soybean meal for monogastric feeding is limited due to its lower protein and amino acid content, as well as its lower digestibility. Starting from rapeseed produced in Europe, it was subjected to a previous processing to extract the oil; The resulting cake was subjected to two processing technologies to increase its crude protein content by 15%, reaching values higher than 40%. The 2 ...