Vitamins are an indispensable trace nutrient for animals. But how much vitamins are in commonly used feed ingredients for pigs? 13 ingredients were put to the test.

Vitamins are essential and a vitamin deficiency could lead to low growth rate in growing-finishing pigs. Nevertheless, vitamin overdoses can have a negative effect on pigs. To meet the requirements of the pigs, nutritionists need to know what the vitamin content is of the feed ingredients used before they can decide to add exogenous vitamins.

143 samples of 13 feed ingredients

Researchers from the China Agricultural University in Beijing therefore determined the concentration of vitamins in 143 samples of 13 feed ingredients commonly used in pig diets.

The ingredients included:

Corn and 4 corn co-products

1. Corn distillers dried grains with solubles (DDGS),

2. Corn gluten meal,

3. Corn germ meal and

4. Corn gluten feed

Wheat and 2 wheat co-products

1. wheat bran and

2. wheat shorts

5 oilseed meals

1. Soybean meal,

2. Rapeseed meal,

3. Peanut meal,

4. Sunflower seed meal and

5. Cottonseed meal

The maximum, minimum, average value, standard deviation (SD) and coefficient of variation (CV) for each vitamin in ingredients were calculated. The data was divided into 3 groups for analysis which included corn and corn co-products, wheat and wheat co-products, and oilseed meals. The results are shown in the table below.

Concentrations of vitamins in different feed ingredients (in mg/kg).

a−d. Within a column, means for the different ingredients not followed by the same superscript were different (P <  0.05).

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