As increasingly severe restrictions on the use of antimicrobials in pig production loom, it is imperative that the industry find alternate ways to enhance pig performance and health. These ways will include many aspects of health management – such as all-in/all-out pig flow, biosecurity, sanitation, and vaccines – but dietary factors also deserve consideration. Several feed additives may be useful for that purpose, but major dietary components may exert the dominant effects. A cereal grain is the largest component of most pig diets, so the effects of various cereals deserve special consideration. Different cereals have different carbohydrate compositions, so it is likely that they may result in different bacterial populations in the digestive tract. There are competing concepts of how dietary cereals may influence resistance to enteric disease, but we have surprisingly little information upon which to base decisions on so important a factor. Economics will dictate that corn remain the dominant cereal in most pig diets in the U.S., but other cereals could realistically be used in the small amounts of feed consumed by pigs during the period immediately after weaning, if that is determined to be beneficial.
Our results are not sufficient basis for recommending that producers use rice or barley instead of corn in early nursery diets, but they confirm that the issue is an important one that deserves further study. We found suggestions in three experiments, two intensive experiments in disease-containment chambers and a feeding trial on a commercial farm, that changing from corn to another cereal may improve health of newly weaned pigs. We need further studies to confirm or refute these suggestions and, if the suggested advantage proves real, to refine diet formulations and duration of feeding alternate cereals to optimize the benefit:cost relationship.
