Impact of Supplementing EASYZYME^TM
on Feed Utilization and Pig Performance

Feed cost is always a major factor in determining profitability of animal production. When feed ingredient costs increase, it becomes even more important. Elevated prices of corn and soybean meal (SBM) drive more and more swine producers to feed alternative ingredients, such as distillers dried grains with solubles (DDGS), wheat midds, and corn germ meal.

Diets with alternative ingredients often contain higher amounts of fiber and non-starch polysaccharides (NSP) compared to traditional corn and SBM diets. Higher NSP diets cannot be utilized as well because pigs cannot secrete sufficient amounts of carbohydrate enzymes to break down NSP. Supplementing swine diets with enzymes can help improve digestion of higher NSP diets. ADM Alliance Nutrition Research has shown that EASYZYME is an effective enzyme that can help improve feed utilization and pig performance.

Enzymes and Non-starch Polysaccharide

Enzymes are primarily composed of protein, which typically contains 300 or more amino acids. Enzymes function as a chemical catalyst in the body to speed up biochemical reactions. Without enzymes, most biochemical reactions within the body would occur very slowly or not at all. Each enzyme is designed to breakdown a specific substrate. Several categories of enzymes are involved in the digestion of feed ingredients in the gastrointestinal tract. These enzymes are mostly carbohydrases, lipases, proteases, and phytase.  Carbohydrases are a class of enzymes that are responsible for the hydrolysis of carbohydrates in the gastrointestinal tract. 

Different carbohydrates require different carbohydrases for hydrolysis. Carbohydrases that are commercially available include amylase, cellulase, hemicellulase, beta-glucanase, xylanase, mannanase, alpha-galactosidase, and pectinase. These carbohydrases are available to the animal industry either as an individual enzyme or in different combinations. EASYZYME is an NSP enzyme and contains enzymatic activities of alpha-galactosidase, galactomanannase, xylanase, and beta-glucanase. It is produced from a single fermentation process of a fungi organism  Aspergillus niger. The unique process of fermentation and microbial selection leads to the production of ancillary enzymes such as amylase, phytase, cellulase and protease that complement the primary enzymes and assist in the breakdown of complex substrates in feed ingredients.

Carbohydrates in feedstuffs are classified into three categories: sugars, oligosaccharides, and polysaccharides. Polysaccharides are divided into starch and non-starch polysaccharides. Non-starch polysaccharides can comprise up to 90% of the cell wall of plants. The most abundant plant cell wall NSP includes cellulose, hemicelluloses, and pectin. Examples of NSP compounds are arabinoxylans, beta-glucans, galactomannans, and alpha-galactosides (raffinose and stachyose).

Concentrations and digestibility of NSP in commonly used feedstuffs are presented in Table 1. The available digestibility data indicate that dietary NSP cannot be well digested in monogastric animals. The use of supplemental NSP enzymes to breakdown NSP into simple sugars for absorption enables more efficient use of alternative feedstuffs in swine diets. Absorbed simple sugars are metabolized in the body to provide energy to support animal growth. It has been suggested that carbohydrase benefits observed in poultry and swine studies cannot be completely accounted for by the energy value derived from their constitute sugars. "Nutrient encapsulation" is another hypothesis to help explain enzymes' benefits. 

The NSP in plant cell wall encapsulates starch, protein, oil, and other nutrients within the plant cell. The impermeable cell wall is a physical barrier between the intestinal enzymes and the cell components, preventing full utilization of nutrients within the cell. Hence, supplementing exogenous carbohydrases can help degrade the physical barrier and release the nutrients trapped inside the cell wall. This hypothesis is supported by the results that higher digestibility of protein and amino acids, in addition to improved digestibility of fiber and gross energy, has been reported when carbohydrases are supplemented in swine and poultry diets.
 

EASYZYME in vitro research data
ADM Alliance Nutrition has developed an in vitro procedure to evaluate digestibility of dry matter and organic matter. In this in vitro system, three kinds of ileal digesta collected from pigs fed either corn-SBM diets, corn-SBM-DDGS diets, or corn-SBM-wheat midds diets were used as substrates for EASYZYME to breakdown NSP. Adding EASYZYME at 0.01% in the in vitro system improved dry matter digestibility (Figure 1) of ileal digesta from all pigs regardless of diet, with pigs fed with corn-SBM-wheat midds diets having the greatest improvement. Dry matter digestibility improvement is an indication that EASYZYME helped degrade NSP in the three test diets.

Another in vitro experiment was conducted to determine whether EASYZYME can affect physical appearance of feed ingredients. After one hour treatment with EASYZYME under proper conditions, SBM appeared very different (Figure 2) under electron microscopy (magnified 4000X). The physical change of SBM indicated that EASYZYME might have broken down some SBM cell wall structures.

EASYZYME Improvement of Energy and Amino Acid Digestibility
EASYZYME's effect on energy digestibility was evaluated at the University of Illinois and Texas Tech University using T-cannulated nursery and finishing pigs. Two treatments (control vs. control + EASYZYME) were used in these two studies, in which typical corn-SBM diets were fed to the test pigs. Ten pigs (weight: 37.0 lb) per treatment were used in the nursery study, while eight pigs (weight: 206 lb) per treatment were used in the finisher study. Data from these two studies demonstrated that adding EASYZYME improved apparent ileal digestibility of dietary gross energy (Figure 3).

The improvement was 6.5% in the nursery study (P < 0.01) and 2.8% in the finisher study (P < 0.05). Greater digestibility improvement of dietary gross energy in nursery pigs was expected since the digestive system of the nursery pigs is less mature and thus less capable of hydrolyzing dietary NSP in comparison to growing-finishing pigs.

In the two studies referenced previously, apparent ileal digestibility was measured for dietary crude protein, essential and non-essential amino acids. EASYZYME improved (P < 0.05; Table 2) apparent ileal digestibility of crude protein, lysine, threonine, and tryptophan in corn-SBM diets in both nursery and finisher pig studies. 

EASYZYME Nursery Research Data
A swine nursery study was conducted at the University of Illinois to evaluate whether EASYZYME improved performance of nursery pigs fed corn-SBM diets. Six pens and 36 pigs per treatment were used in this study. The three dietary treatments were:

1. Corn-SBM control diets

2. Control + 0.01% EASYZYME

3. Control + 0.02% EASYZYME

The study consisted of three phases, with phase 1 one week, phase 2 and 3 two weeks each. Increasing dietary inclusion levels of EASYZYME from 0.00%, 0.01%, to 0.02% did not improve overall daily gain or final body weight (Table 3). However, EASYZYME improved overall feed efficiency. These data suggested EASYZYME's optimal inclusion level was 0.01%.
 

EASYZYME's effect on performance of late nursery pigs fed high DDGS diets was evaluated in an ADM study (S08109). In this 21-day study three dietary treatments were used with six pens and 24 pigs per treatment (initial pig weight of approximately 20 lb). The three dietary treatments were:

1. Corn-SBM control

2. Corn-SBM-DDGS diet (negative control)

3. Corn-SBM-DDGS plus EASYZYME at 0.01%
    

DDGS inclusion level was 30% in treatments 2 and 3. All treatment diets were formulated to contain similar energy and amino acid contents and were offered in meal form. Including 30% DDGS tended to decrease feed intake (P < 0.10; Table 4) and daily gain (P > 0.10) when compared with pigs fed the corn-SBM diet. However, feed efficiency was improved (P < 0.05). Adding EASYZYME into the DDGS diet improved feed intake by 8.9% and daily gain by 6.7% (P < 0.10). These results are similar to the data presented by Spencer et. al. during the 2007 Midwest joint meeting of the American Society of Animal Science and American Dairy Science Association.
 

EASYZYME Grow-Finish Research Data
ADM Alliance Nutrition conducted two grow-finish studies to evaluate whether EASYZYME could improve performance of grow-finish pigs fed diets containing high levels of alternative ingredients. In the 39-day finisher study (S04203), three dietary treatments were used:

1. Corn-SBM-animal fat control diets

2. Control + 20% wheat midds

3. Control + 20% wheat midds + 0.01% EASYZYME

Close to 2% animal fat was added to the control diet, but was removed from the other two diets. Inclusion of wheat midds and removal of animal fat for treatments 2 and 3 resulted in 100 kcal/lb less metabolizable energy (ME) in the diets.  Each treatment was represented by nine pens and 45 pigs.  Pigs fed treatment 2 diet containing wheat midds grew slower and converted feed less efficiently (P < 0.05; Figure 4) compared to pigs fed the corn-SBM-animal fat control diet. Supplementing EASYZYME into diets with high wheat midds resulted in 7% daily gain improvement (P < 0.05; Figure 4), but had no significant effect on feed efficiency.

ADM study (S08205) evaluated the effect of EASYZYME on performance of grow-finish pigs fed DDGS diets. Five dietary treatments were adopted in this study.

1)     Corn-SBM control

2)     Corn-SBM-15% DDGS

3)     Corn-SBM-30% DDGS

4)     Corn-SBM-15% DDGS-0.01% EASYZYME

5)     Corn-SBM-30% DDGS-0.01% EASYZYME

Each treatment was represented by five pens and 19 pigs. Diets were formulated to contain similar ME and amino acid concentrations within each phase. Increasing DDGS from 0% to 15% or 30% decreased (P < 0.10) daily gain and body weight during the grower stage (51 days; Table 5). In addition, increasing dietary DDGS linearly decreased feed efficiency (P < 0.05) during the grower stage and the entire 105-day study. Supplementing 0.01% EASYZYME into DDGS diets improved feed efficiency in both grower stage (P < 0.05) and the entire study (P < 0.10), when compared with DDGS diets without EASYZYME. As a result, EASYZYME brought the poorer feed efficiency from feeding DDGS diets back to be similar to that of corn-SBM diets. The feed efficiency improvement is believed to be related to degradation of NSP by EASYZYME. In this study, EASYZYME increased hog market weight by 7.5 lb and 3.6 lb, respectively, when compared with pigs fed 15% or 30% DDGS diets that contained no EASYZYME. 

EASYZYME Sow Research Data
A small sow study was conducted at Texas Tech University, using 10 sows per treatment. Supplementing 0.01% EASYZYME into lactation diets of first parity sows reduced sow weight loss in the first week (P < 0.01; Table 6) and the entire 21-day lactation (P < 0.05). Furthermore, EASYZYME helped decrease weaning-to-estrus interval (P < 0.05). A large scale sow study is needed to confirm the positive findings observed in this small sow study.
 

 Summary
Common feed ingredients, especially alternative ingredients such as DDGS, wheat midds, and corn germ meal, contain high levels of NSP.  Endogenous enzymes in swine do not sufficiently digest the NSP portion of plant ingredients. Supplementing swine diets with exogenous carbohydrases, such as EASYZYME, can help effectively degrade NSP in swine diets to provide more energy. EASYZYME is an NSP enzyme containing several carbohydrases. Both university and ADM internal research data have shown that EASYZYME can improve energy and nutrient digestibility, and improve performance of nursery and grow-finish pigs fed diets containing high levels of NSP (corn-SBM-DDGS, corn-SBM-wheat midds, or corn-SBM diets). Therefore, EASYZYME can be used to improve pig performance or to decrease formulation cost by feeding a lower energy diet. 

Reference available upon request

ADM Alliance Nutrition, Inc. , a wholly owned subsidiary of the Archer Daniels Midland Company