IT IS NOT ABOUT CRUDE FIBER ANYMORE

For years, nutritionists have been formulating feeds using crude fiber as a driver. Crude fiber is still today the main criteria used in formulation, as it is the easiest portion of fibers to be analyzed in a laboratory. But crude fiber is actually a quite small fraction of total dietary fiber used by animals. It contains only a part of cellulose and lignin. Even the ADF and NDF do not represent fully the total dietary fiber. But most importantly NDF contains both fermentable and non-fermentable fibers that trigger different physiological mechanism and therefore NDF cannot be a good indicator to promote healthy digestive process and it does not enable to make proper arbitration between the physiological processes that sows require. We need to have a broader look at fibers. Read more...

Related tags: Fibre - Formulation - Swine