Time to think outside the ZINC OXIDE box for piglet weaning!

For swine producers all around Europe, 2022 marks the end of medicinal zinc oxide (ZnO) use and the deadline to find alternative strategies for weaning. This spring, our swine technical team has been busy presenting new data on yeast-based alternative approaches at various international swine conferences. Here is an overview of these approaches.

The power of yeast-based solutions

Yeast-based products are a good alternative to reduce the use of pharmacological levels of ZnO in feed. To provide additional data, a team of researchers from Dankook University in Korea teamed up with Lallemand Animal Nutrition to assess the effect of the supplementation of a combination of yeast products containing:

• The live yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae boulardii CNCM I-1079,
• The yeast fractions association YANG, and
• The hydrolyzed yeast YELA PROSECURE

The study was conducted on 200 weanling piglets measuring growth performance and nutrient digestibility in comparison to pharmacological levels of ZnO¹.

Results clearly indicated the yeast-based products combination exerted a similar level of benefits on the piglets’ growth performance as well as on the digestibility of crude protein and gross energy compared to the pharmacological levels of ZnO.

Functional hydrolyzed yeast

YELA PROSECURE, a specifically designed functional hydrolyzed yeast, has been recently developed as a novel source of highly digestible and functional nutrients (free digestible amino acids and small peptides). The trial presented at the Zero Zinc Summit, conducted in the context of free-ZnO diets, shows that YELA PROSECURE compares favorably to fishmeal by stimulating post-weaning feed intake, growth performance, and economical production efficiency².

The importance of maternal imprinting

Other presented studies focused on the importance of planning the sow’s nutrition as early as possible. They confirmed the concept of maternal imprinting when it comes to preparing the piglet digestive system (through microbiota establishment), colostrum immune quality, and immune transfer³. Piglets benefit from the sows’ diet supplementation with live yeast during gestation and lactation with improved performance up to, and after, weaning.