Weaned pigs often face digestive challenges, such as diarrhea, as they adjust from sow’s milk to a plant-based diet. This dietary change can increase the risk of morbidity and mortality. Soybean meal is the most economical source of protein for pigs, but the complex carbohydrates (stachyose, raffinose) and storage proteins (glycinin, and beta-conglycinin) can cause hypersensitivity and impact growth performance in nursery pigs.

Instead, a portion of the soybean meal can be replaced with other specialty protein sources, such as fish meal, spray-dried animal plasma, or further refined specialty soy products. 

In summary, incorporating thermo-mechanically processed soybean meal in diets for the first 21 d post-weaning to replace a portion of the SID Lys provided from SBM (25 to 50% in phase 1 and 12.5 to 25% in phase 2) resulted in improved growth performance. Additionally, TM-SBM inclusion at 25% of SBM SID Lys resulted in fewer incidences of diarrhea and higher fecal DM at d 7 post-weaning. Additionally, the highest level of TM-SBM decreased total removals and mortalities.

Read more about the study here.