Posted on October 12, 2012 in Swine Performance


By Al Gunderson and Dr. Dean Koehler
High feed costs combined with a high corn/soybean meal (SBM) price spread have created an interesting situation. It could be advantageous to reduce SBM levels and feed lower crude protein formulations based on high levels of crystalline amino acids. Crystalline forms of lysine, methionine and threonine are readily available and commonly used in swine diets. The next limiting amino acid in grow-finish swine diets is tryptophan. But tryptophan is produced in much smaller quantities.