The results of a recent industry survey revealed a wide variation in trypsin inhibitors (TI) across soybean meal sources in the U.S., with values ranging from 1.67 to 10.57 trypsin inhibitor units (TIU)/mg seed powder. This considerable variation in soybean meal TI has prompted a need for revisiting the acceptable levels of TIU that can be included in nursery diets without reducing performance. Therefore, the objective of this study was to investigate the effects of increasing TIU in the diet on nursery pig performance, fecal dry matter, and nutrient digestibility. 

Increasing dietary TIU worsened growth performance throughout the entire nursery period, as well as lowering nutrient digestibility. Based on the results in this study, including soybean meal with greater than 6 TIU/mg at a rate similar to that used in this study would result in dietary TIU greater than 1.4 TIU/mg of complete feed, which will lead to a reduction in nursery growth performance and nutrient digestibility.

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