The Crucial Role of Amino Acid Profiling: An Interview with Jan Dolas
The importance of conducting analyses to determine amino acid levels in animal feeds was explained to us by Jan Dolas, the technologist at the «Eco Meat» pig-breeding complex.
The farm is located in the village of Batiatychi, Lviv Oblast, and is engaged in raising and selling piglets, both up to 25 kg and at two months of age. It is also a representative of «Choice Genetics», which supplies replacement gilts, boars, and great-grandparent stock.
Profile:Jan Dolas (Poland) is the Production Director of «Eco Meat» LLC, where he began working in 2016. He collaborates with Choice Genetics, where he worked for two years. For a long period he worked at the major enterprise Big Dutchman, holding the position of sales manager. He served as an animal husbandry specialist at the Sulewski company, where he worked for four years, and for six years he ran his own pig-equipment business. He brings extensive experience gained since 1987 on various farms and with different animal species, together with expertise in technology consulting, animal rearing, feeding and housing, project drafting, enterprise management, and participation in international conferences and exhibitions. Education: livestock engineering technologist.
Why is it important to analyse the amino acid composition of feeds used in pig farming?
Amino acids are the fundamental basis of pig farming. They are the building blocks from which the animals' bodies are formed, and if they are insufficient, the animals' weight gain is limited.
There is a concept known as Liebig's barrel: an animal's growth proceeds only at the level of the lowest (limiting) amino acid. It is as if we wish to fill a barrel that has holes with water — we can only fill it up to the lowest hole. Accordingly, amino acids determine the growth effect we will obtain. This is fundamental.
Of course, other factors are important too, but it is the amino acids that essentially shape the animals' daily ration.
In which feeds is it necessary to carry out such analyses?
As a rule, analysis should begin with the crop raw materials. However, the final and definitive sample is, of course, the complete feed itself.
Which crop raw materials specifically?
Naturally, those we use to formulate the feed — grain and soya. This should give us sufficient general information about the feed, since we obtain the amino acid content of premixes from the supplier. It is their obligation to supply us with products bearing a declared amino acid content.
How often should feed analyses be carried out: at regular intervals, or only when weight-gain problems begin to appear in the animals?
No — by the time problems appear, it is already too late. Analyses must be carried out continuously, depending on how the enterprise works with its raw material base. When we buy grain from a single farmer who cultivates it in a consistent way, we receive a homogeneous product, so analysis can be performed less frequently. But if we buy raw materials from various farmers and sources, it is advisable to run analyses fairly often, in order to have reliable information on the parameters of the individual ingredients.
If the feed lacks the required balance of amino acids, what negative consequences arise?
Let us return to the example of Liebig's barrel. If, for instance, we have lysine at a level that supports a daily gain of 800 g, but the remaining components (methionine, threonine, tryptophan, cysteine) are present in far greater quantities, the gain will still be limited to the level set by lysine — those same 800 g. Even though threonine may be supplied at a rate sufficient for 1.5 kg of gain, all of that surplus simply goes to waste.
So are certain specific amino acids more important than others?
There are the so-called essential (or indispensable) amino acids — twenty of them — which the animal's body cannot synthesise on its own from other amino acids. They must be supplied to the animal externally, either through natural raw materials or in synthetic form.
Interview conducted by Nazar Zakharko.
27 August 2020