Commercial Agriculture Program
Fall 2009
Release of the first ever National Swine Nutrition Guide in 2010
By Dr. Marcia Shannon, Swine Nutritionist
The purpose of the National Swine Nutrition Guide is to enhance the understanding of basic swine nutrition, feeding principles and related management issues. State-based guides traditionally served this purpose, but due to the attrition of qualified swine extension specialists trained to write or update such documents, most of the previous guides cease to exist. This effort will not replace the need for an updated Nutrient Requirements of Swine published by the National Academy of Science; work is being done to keep that opportunity alive.
The National Swine Nutrition Guide is a practical bulletin containing nutrient recommendations that are based upon the requirements established by the 1998 NRC and research results published since with an appropriate safety margin. The Fact Sheets resulting from this project will be published electronically in the Pork Information Gateway (PIG), and in hard copy by the US Pork Center Excellence for use by personnel who work with pork producers. More information can be found at http://www.usporkcenter.org.
Beginning in January, educational training sessions will be administered by the authors of the guide. These training sessions will focus on the use and application of the National Swine Nutrition Guide. They will include an overview of the guide’s nutritional recommendations, demonstration of the computer software for least-cost ration formulation, and cover critical points of each factsheet.
There will be six different training sessions at the flowing dates and locations:
Indianapolis, IN - January 2010
Pullman, WA - February 5
Kansas City, MO - February 17
Greenville, NC - February 2010
Sioux City, IA - March 5
Owatonna, MN - March 11
These training sessions are open to any producer, educator or industry personnel interested in obtaining one-on-one information and a copy of the guide. Please contact Dr. Marcia Shannon at carlsonm@ missouri.edu or 573-882-7859 if you are interested in attending the training session in Kansas City, MO.