Animals digest food with enzymes from the animal itself and the microbes in its gut. However, the digestive process of animals is not 100% efficient. 15-25% of pig and poultry feed cannot be digested and utilized by animals because the feed contains many anti-nutritional factors. These anti-nutritional factors will hinder the entire digestion process. Animals It lacks the enzymes that degrade certain feed ingredients.
In livestock and poultry production, feed is the most important cost, and the farm’s profitability mainly depends on the relative cost and the utilization rate of nutrients in the feed. If the feed is not used efficiently, there is a price to pay in terms of costs for producers and environmental controls. Adding specific enzyme preparations in the feed can improve the nutritional value of the feed raw materials and increase the digestion and utilization rate. Feed enzymes can degrade anti-nutritional factors in many feed ingredients. These anti-nutritional factors hinder the normal digestion of feed by animals, resulting in decreased meat and egg production, decreased feed utilization, and digestive disorders in animals. The application of enzyme preparation can improve the utilization rate of starch, protein, amino acid, and mineral elements. In addition, it can supplement the deficiency of endogenous enzymes in young animals because the digestive tract of young animals is immature, resulting in insufficient secretion of various digestive enzymes. As a kind of protein, enzymes are finally digested or excreted by animals and will not remain in meat and eggs.
The main function of feed enzyme preparation:
Eliminate anti-nutritional factors, improve feed utilization, reduce costs, and increase feed value;
Protect the environment – by improving the digestion and absorption rate of feed, reducing the excretion of manure, and reducing nitrogen and phosphorus emissions;
Improve the uniformity – reduce the nutritional difference among feed materials, keep the feed quality stable, and ensure the uniformity of meat and egg production performance;
Maintain intestinal health – By improving the utilization rate of nutrients, the nutrient supply of potentially pathogenic bacteria in the intestinal tract is reduced, and the incidence of diseases is reduced.
What types of enzyme preparations are used in feed?
Enzyme preparations with nutritional functions are divided into two categories according to their functions.
The first category is direct hydrolysis of nutrient substrates, such as protease, amylase, lipase, etc.;
The second category removes anti-nutritional factors, including phytase and second-generation feed enzymes such as non-starch polysaccharases (xylanase, β-glucanase, cellulase, etc.), and third-generation feed enzymes Specific carbohydrate enzymes (α-galactosidase, β-mannanase, chitinase, chitosanase, etc.).
The main purpose of enzyme preparations currently used in feed is to degrade phytic acid, starch, cellulose, and protein enzymes.
1-phytase
Phosphorus is very important in the bone development and metabolism of livestock and poultry. Phosphorus in feed ingredients of plant origin exists mainly in the form of phytate phosphorus, which is the main storage mode of phosphorus in plant seeds. In plants, phytic acid can combine with phosphorus, calcium, protein, and starch, so these nutrients cannot be well absorbed and utilized. Livestock and poultry cannot secrete phytase that degrades phytic acid. Adding phytase to feed can release minerals, starch, and protein bound by phytic acid, and these nutrients can be digested and absorbed by animals, thereby improving animal production performance. Phytase is a widely recognized and used enzyme which can reduce the excretion of phosphorus by livestock and poultry, thereby reducing the risk of water pollution.
2. Amylase
The degradation degree of starch in plant raw materials depends on the content of resistant starch, the size of starch granules, the composition of starch, and the degree of encapsulation of starch. Plant genetics, growing conditions, harvesting conditions, handling, drying, storage, and feed processing all affect starch digestibility. Starch-degrading enzymes can degrade starch and vegetable protein in grains and grain by-products. Amylase can enable livestock and poultry to absorb more energy from feed by improving the digestion and utilization rate of starch, thereby improving the production performance of animals. In juvenile animal diets, amylase can supplement endogenous enzymes, and lower feed intake after weaning is directly related to lower amylase secretion. In addition, amylase can promote the utilization of low-maturity grains in feed, reduce feed costs, and does not affect the production performance of post-weaning piglets.
3. Cellulose-degrading enzymes
All plant-derived feed ingredients contain fiber, and there are two main types of fiber, soluble and insoluble. In many ways, cellulose acts as an antinutrient. First, nutrients such as starch and protein are wrapped in the insoluble fibers of the cell wall, preventing these nutrients from being released. Pigs and poultry cannot utilize these nutrients because they cannot secrete enzymes that degrade the fibers in their cell walls;
In addition, soluble fiber dissolves in the intestinal tract of pigs and poultry, resulting in increased viscosity of digesta, wrapping nutrients, reducing the digestibility of nutrients and passing speed in the intestinal tract; third, fiber can absorb water and lock Water-soluble nutrients; finally, fiber swells in the gut, slowing down the flow of chyme through the gut, resulting in a reduction in feed intake and growth rate of the animal. The two main enzymes used to degrade fiber in animal feed are xylanase and glucanase. Xylan can degrade arabinoxylan, especially for grains and by-products. Glucanase mainly degrades dextran, mainly targeting barley, oats, and by-products. At present, other fiber-degrading enzymes are also used in animal nutrition, but the amount is very small, including mannanase, pectinase, galactosidase, etc., which must also be given sufficient attention, especially mannanase.
4. Protease
Proteases can degrade storage proteins in different feed ingredients and protein-like anti-nutritional components in plant proteins. Seeds of plants, especially legumes like soybeans, contain large amounts of storage protein. Storage proteins are mainly formed during seed production and stored in seeds to provide nitrogen sources for germination.
Storage proteins can be combined with starch, and proteases can degrade storage proteins, releasing energy-rich starch that can be digested and utilized by animals. Two important protein-like anti-nutritional factors are trypsin inhibitors and lectins. Trypsin inhibitors are found in unprocessed plant proteins, such as soybeans, and trypsin inhibitors hinder the digestion of proteins by inhibiting trypsin. Trypsin is secreted by the pancreas and helps break down proteins in the small intestine.
Lectins are sugar-linked proteins that have been shown to reduce digestibility. The usual way to reduce trypsin and lectin is to use heating during processing, but the heating process will reduce the utilization rate of amino acids, especially the utilization rate of lysine. Therefore, soybean meal will contain a certain amount of trypsin inhibitor and lectin. Protease can reduce the content of trypsin inhibitors and lectin, thereby improving protein utilization.
Reflection of the value of feed enzyme preparation
Reducing feed cost is the main purpose of using feed enzyme preparations. Feed accounts for 70% of the cost of livestock and poultry farming. Energy, protein, and mineral elements are the main components of livestock and poultry feed. Enzymes can improve the availability of these nutrients, so the nutrient levels of these nutrients can be adjusted in the feed formulation. The value of enzyme preparations depends largely on the cost of adding enzyme preparations and the cost of feed ingredients (corn, oil, soybean meal, calcium hydrogen phosphate, etc.).
When the price of feed raw materials rises, the addition of enzyme preparations will obtain better economic benefits. The application of enzyme preparations helps to improve the quality of feed ingredients.
While the demand for raw materials such as corn, wheat, barley, and soybean meal increases, the price of raw materials also increases. The use of some low-cost, low-digestibility raw materials has become a necessity, and the amount of use is increasing. These raw materials are characterized by high fiber and low digestibility. Adding fiber-degrading enzymes can fully improve the nutrient utilization of these raw materials, enabling feed producers to flexibly apply these unconventional raw materials to feed formulations.
How to use enzyme preparation in feed?
Enzymes are applied to feed in two ways. One is to adjust the feed formula, reduce costs, and maintain animal growth, egg production, and feed conversion. For example, replace raw materials such as wheat, barley, and corn with low-cost, high-fiber raw materials, or reduce the level of added oil in feed. Another way is to add additional enzyme preparations to the feed formula to improve the production performance and feed conversion efficiency of animals, and to improve production efficiency by increasing feed utilization.
In actual production, the potential nutritional value of enzyme preparations should be considered in low-cost feed formulations. Potential nutritional value is generally aimed at phosphorus, calcium, protein, amino acids, and energy. The nutritional potential is a measure of how well an enzyme preparation releases nutrients.
In addition, the enzyme preparation added to the feed should ensure the activity in the animal body, the stability during storage, and the compatibility with minerals, vitamins, and other feed materials; Temperature, safety, operability, and fluidity in the process of feed mixing.