Feed Nutrition

 Black soldier fly larval meal in feed enhances growth performance, carcass yield and meat quality of finishing pigs 

https://www.wageningenacademic.com/doi/pdf/10.3920/JIFF2020.0072

(full study attached)

• Lower FCR  
• Enhanced growth (3 of 4 BSFLM inclusion rates (50, 75, 100%) outperformed FM control diets)
• Higher crude fat in the lean meat coupled
• Adds to previous research on antimicrobial and anti-inflammatory benefits for swine.

This study evaluated the effects of replacing dietary FM with BSFLM on growth, carcass traits and meat quality of finisher pigs. A control diet (including FM: 0% BSFLM) was compared with four dietary levels of replacement of FM with BSFLM at 25, 50, 75 or 100%. Forty hybrid pigs (crossbreeds of purebred Large White and Landrace) were randomly allocated to the five different dietary treatments. Feed intake, body weight gain and feed conversion ratio were measured. After 98 days of feeding, all pigs were slaughtered for the evaluation of carcass and nutritional content of the organ and muscle tissues. Diet significantly affected pig growth performance. Carcass weight of pigs fed diets with BSFLM replacing FM by 50, 75 or 100% (w/w) was higher than for pigs fed control diet with 100% FM as protein source. Crude protein content of pork tissues was high (65-93% on dry-matter basis) across all dietary groups. Therefore, BSFLM can replace FM in pig feed. This is relevant for commercial pig feed production and provides for the first time a nutritional analysis of pork derived from pigs raised on BSFLM.

Providing live BSFL (Hermetia illucens) improves welfare while maintaining performance of piglets

post‑weaning

 (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-86765-3)

During weaning, piglets experience concurrent social, physical, and nutritional stressors. Consequently, piglets often have poor feed intake and display increased oral manipulative behaviors post‑weaning, indicative of compromised welfare. Black soldier fly larvae (BSFL) possess many attractive properties for pigs and could therefore function as effective edible enrichment, potentially alleviating weaning stress by facilitating exploration and promoting feed intake. In this study, pairs of piglets received a small amount of either live BSFL or wood shavings (8 pens/treatment) scattered throughout the pen twice a day for 11 days after weaning. Home‑pen behavior was scored by instantaneous scan sampling on day 2, 5 and 8, and behavioral responses to a novel environment and novel object were scored on day 10/11. Performance‑related parameters were observed regularly. Larvae provisioning increased floor‑directed exploration and decreased object‑directed exploration, pig‑directed oral manipulation, fighting and eating of pellets, and reduced neophobia towards a novel object. Pellet intake was significantly decreased by BSFL provisioning during day 4–11 post‑ weaning, although feed and net energy intake including BSFL never differed between treatments. BSFL provisioning did not influence piglet growth, feed efficiency, energy efficiency, and fecal consistency. To conclude, live BSFL provisioning positively affected post‑weaning piglet behavior while maintaining performance.

 Courtesy of our friends at Chapul 

www.chapulfarms.com