Fiber in Animal Nutrition

23 Fiber effects related to health and welfare topics Arbocel in pigs, poultry and pets clearly demonstrate this. A metabolism trial at the Bavarian Institute for Animal Nutrition and Feed Management (Lindermayer and Probstmeier, 2003a,b) revealed a percentage increase of 3.5 and 5.0 for crude protein and crude fat, respectively. Here Arbocel was exchanged for 8% wheat bran and 8% sugar beet pulp in the control diet (table 3). The improvement in nutrient digestibility through Arbocel is allocated to the unique combination of an insoluble fiber with func- tional characteristics (provided by HPC technology): • loosening digesta for good gut motility • giving better access of enzymes to digesta via fibrils • inducing mechanical penetration of the intestinal microvilli – enlarged surface area, better mucus production Water intake Water is considered the most important nu- trient in animal nutrition and not providing proper access to hygienically flawless water impacts metabolism and feed intake. Water requirement depends on age, body weight, performance level and ambient temperatures. As important as an adequate feeding re- gime is during lactation there is another im- portant limiting factor: water intake. Sows drink between 10–40 l/day depending on the reproductive phase. Considering the fact that milk consists of approx. 80% water, positively influencing water intake can be a performance benefit. Water intake is influenced by the dry mat- ter content and volume of the feed. Further- more including fibrous feed stuffs impacts water intake. Thereby the increased dry matter content and the bulking properties with good water holding capacity make a contribution. Peltoniemi andOliviero (2011) investigated the influence of including fibrous feed stuff to the diets of sows around farrowing. The control group received a standard diet with 3.8% fiber while the trial group was fed a diet with 7.0%fiber content.The sows fed the high fiber diet drank significantly more water pre- and post farrowing (figure 5). Higher water in this phase reduces the incidence of Table 3: Influence of 2% Arbocel on apparent digestibility of crude nutrients (Lindermayer and Probstmeier, 2003b) Compounds Digestibility (%) Control diet Control 2% Arbocel Composition % Dry matter 79.5 80.6 Barley 77 Organic matter 81.7 82.4 Soybean meal 4 Crude protein 74.7 78.2 Wheat bran 8 Crude fat 80.8 85.8 SBP* 8 Crude fiber 27.4 12.7 Premix 3 NfE 87.4 88.7 Energy content ME (87% DM) 11.6 12.08 ME (100% DM) 13.4 13.88 *sugar beet pulp © ERLING Verlag