Healthy pigs equals safe, quality pork. And this starts with a healthy diet for pigs. It is important that pigs are feed a nutritionally balanced diet that is age-appropriate, nutritionally balanced diets, individually regulated health maintenance and treatment protocols, and stepped-up biosecurity efforts are just a few of the reasons U.S. pig farming is the most modern and well-managed in the world.

A pig’s diet (vitamins, supplements, feed)

Today, pigs raised for food are predominantly fed a grain-based, nutritionally balanced diet. The feed is usually based on corn and soybean meal and may include wheat or barley, with vitamins and minerals added to balance dietary requirements for each stage of growth and reproduction. Corn and soybean meal are the two major ingredients in most hog diets. When corn and soybean meal prices are high, pig farmers substitute alternative feed ingredients to help reduce feed cost. Many pig farmers also raise crops and they use this grain, in part, as food for their pigs.

Pig diets are made in a variety of ways. Many producers have on-farm feed mills and mix their own feed from individual ingredients. Others use grain grown on their farms and either a commercial protein supplement that contains all of the protein, vitamins and minerals needed or add a protein source such as soybean meal, canola meal or field peas and a premix that contains only vitamins and minerals. Finally, some farms purchase complete rations from feed manufacturers. These complete feeds require no further processing or mixing.

Feed additives, such as beta-agonists, are another improvement that farmers use worldwide in raising healthy pigs. They are given as part of a healthy and balanced diet and allow pigs to make the most of their food by converting the nutrients in their feed into lean muscle instead of fat. This helps produce a leaner meat product, which consumers want.

Nutritional efficiency

Pig farmers know the importance of using good feed and what it takes for our pigs to gain weight appropriately. But in today’s world of high feed costs, we have a new sense of urgency to find ways to improve not only feed efficiency but also nutritional efficiency, to get more value from our feed budgets.

Nutritional efficiency also takes into account a pig’s ability to convert available nutrients into lean gain. Nutritional efficiency is affected by how well a farmer gets the right feed to the right pigs at the right time.

Nutritional programs play a significant role in the amount of weight variation within a common group of pigs. Farmers seek to minimize this variation through proper pig management and by following nutrition and health protocols. Historically, this has been accomplished by feeding cereal grain- and soybean-meal-based diets throughout the various production stages.

However, when feed ingredient prices rise, farmers explore other options to determine optimum use of alternative ingredients, as well as the most economical nutrient levels of various diets.

Pork Checkoff Research
For information on pig feed costs, read objective, independent research based on pig farming priorities. The National Pork Board does not have control over the outcome of the research nor does it have editorial review of research reports, the content of which belongs to the authors.