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The Scale Up™ Program for Grow-Finishers is aimed at maximizing pork producers’ economic return. Novus International, Inc., debuted the new program recently for swine producers in the Americas.
Marcela Garcia, NOVUS swine solutions senior manager, says this program by the intelligent nutrition company can help pork producers in North and South America improve feed conversion ratio and support performance in a sustainable manner.
“With feed costs cutting into profits, it’s vital for producers to identify nutritional solutions that go beyond what is expected to maximize their return,” she says. “NOVUS offers solutions that are made of more and producers can see the results in their grow-finishers.”
MINTREX® Cu bis-chelated trace mineral is a key tool in the Scale Up™ Program for Grow-Finishers to help improve efficiency and economic return in that stage of production.
Brad Lawrence, Ph.D., NOVUS senior technical services manager, says the copper in MINTREX® Cu bis-chelated trace mineral is bound to hydroxy analogue of methionine, HMTBa, a precursor to L-methionine. This makes the additive less susceptible to antagonisms throughout the gastrointestinal tract, allowing more mineral to reach the site of absorption in the gut while also supplying a source of essential amino acids. This unique makeup is shown to lower feed conversion by 3 to 5 points over traditional inorganic copper sources.
“With MINTREX® Cu we see over $1.00 USD per pig return on an adjusted feed conversion ratio (FCR) and over $2.00 USD per pig return on a closeout basis,” says Lawrence. “We have also observed 0.5 to 1.0 percentage points fewer removals. This translates to 5 to 10 more pigs marketed per 1,000 pigs placed.”
MINTREX® Cu can be supplemented at 50 ppm vs 150 ppm from TBBC while seeing the same or improved performance. From an environmental sustainability perspective, this can result in 60% less copper excreted simply from the lower inclusion rate.
“Feeding MINTREX® Cu at a significantly reduced rate than inorganic sources means feeding up to 650 fewer pounds of elemental copper per 10,000 pigs marketed,” Lawrence says. “The 4 points lower feed conversion that has been observed equates to 45 tons less feed per 10,000 pigs or about two truckloads.”
With the added methionine value from HMTBa producers can also reduce supplemental methionine inclusion elsewhere in the ration, providing yet another advantage of MINTREX® Cu over traditional inorganic sources.
NOVUS can also help producers looking to further improve FCR in grow-finishers with ACTIVATE® DA nutritional feed acid, a proprietary blend of organic acids that supports pig health. Garcia says, when fed at two pounds/ton during the late-finish stage, pigs fed ACTIVATE® DA consistently improved FCR by up to 9 points during the 200-pound-to-market period.
“ACTIVATE® DA is a powerful tool that producers can use to improve late finishing performance,” Garcia says. “Along with supporting FCR, it is also shown to support weight gain in the last-finishing stage up to 3.7% and support survivability by 1%.”
July 10, 2023 - Novus International, Inc
