Determining the Theronine Requirement of the Lactating Sow

To maximize milk production, nutritionists need to accurately formulate diets to contain the required amounts of amino acids for the sow. This can be challenging because overall production can dramatically affect the sows amino acid needs. If diets are limiting in certain amino acids or energy, the sow will mobilize body protein or fat to meet their needs for milk production. Crystalline amino acids have become more readily and economically avail-able in recent years. Increased use of crystalline amino acids increases the importance of understanding the requirements for amino acids other than lysine in sow lactation diets to prevent an imbalance of essential amino acids. Therefore, our objective in this study was to determine the threonine requirement of the high-producing lactating sow by using diets that contained high concentrations of crystalline amino acids. We also wanted to compare the performance of sows fed the diets containing large amounts of crystalline amino acids with that of sows fed a control diet based on corn-soybean meal.