Threonine Requirements for Post-Weaning Pig in Individual Precision Nutrition Programs: a Meta-Analysis

Abstract Threonine (Thr) is generally the second limiting amino acid (AA) in growing pig diets, and it has a vital role in supporting intestinal functions and the immune system. Additionally, providing pigs with the correct AA requirements decreases nitrogen excretion and improves growth performance. This study aimed to determine standardized ileal digestibility (SID) Thr requirements for individual post-weaned pigs. Additionally, the Thr supplementation effect on average daily gain (ADG) of weaning and growing [7.3 – 51.5 kg of body weight (BW)] pigs under a sanitary challenge was evaluated. Eleven papers published from 1993 to 2015 composed the dataset used to determine the SID Thr requirement in the nursery phase, and five studies conducted from 2014 to 2020 composed the enteric sanitary challenge dataset. The SID Thr was obtained from publications when available or estimated based on the ingredient composition using EvaPig software. The average individual pig SID Thr requirements were estimated by bootstrapping 1,000 repetitions of a linear-plateau mixed model where all parameters were considered random as a function of the trial code. A general positive-definite matrix was used to represent the between-factors covariance using the nlme package of the R software. The effect of supplementing SID Thr above the requirement to attenuate ADG losses during a challenge was evaluated by an effect size analysis using a mixed model of the R Metafor package. Due to the low number of studies assessing pigs’ response to enteric challenges, a P < 0.25 was considered significant. In the post-weaning (14 kg average BW), the estimated ADG was 457 g/d (411 to 493 g/d) as a function of SID Thr individual requirement, which was 4.71 g/d for the average pig, with the least demanding pig requiring 4.4 g/d and the most demanding one requiring 5.1 g/d. For challenged pigs, the across-study heterogeneity was moderate (Higgs index = 36%). Increasing Thr intake by 18% above the estimated requirement attenuated (P = 0.15) ADG losses by 0.7 standard deviations (60 g) compared with pigs fed diets meeting Thr requirements. For pigs in individual precision feeding, the SID Thr requirement is estimated to be 1.03 g per 100 g of ADG for post-weaned pigs. The increase of SID Thr intake by 18% attenuated the ADG losses by 19% compared with non-supplemented pigs with enteric challenges.