Introduction
Weaning at younger ages to increase sow productivity and improve pig health has largely been successful through intensive management changes and the recent introduction of high quality protein sources. Products of animal origin such as blood plasma proteins and dried skim milk are now commonly used as ingredients of choice where they have been found to enhance growth and to stimulate feed intake during the initial postweaning period. New technologies are being developed in the prospect of replacing these expensive ingredients with those that are less costly, while also attempting to decrease nitrogen excretion.
Environment, management, disease conditions, age, and weaning weight can each influence postweaning pig performance. Weaning weight largely determines the length of time that the initial diet should be fed postweaning. Lightweight pigs have a less developed digestive system than their heavier weight litter mates and thus should be fed the more complex diets for a longer time period. The lightweight pig therefore requires feedstuffs that are easily digested so that their postweaning performance will not be curtailed. Modern management strategies include a phase feeding program during the nursery period. The introduction of new protein sources and blends of several highly nutritious protein sources offers alternatives to some of the traditional feed sources fed to weaning pigs.
This study evaluated a protein source (Ultimate protein 1672) that contains a blend of plant/yeast products and was incorporated into the phase 1 and phase 2 diets to replace plasma protein. The two protein sources used in our study were evaluated during two postweaning periods from weaning to 24-day postweaning whereupon all pigs were fed a similar diet to day 38 in order to determine if either protein source influenced later pig performance.