Soybean meal

Soybean meal is a popular protein component in compound feed for livestock, poultry, and fish farms. The high vegetable protein content in soybean meal saves you on expensive animal feed and provides animals, birds, and fish with energy-rich nutrition.

Soybean meal is a high-protein meal. This product is made from seeds that have undergone oil extraction. Soybean meal contains a wide range of essential minerals, amino acids, and proteins.

Soybean meal feed meets the following quality indicators:

Daily intake per 1 head:

• Pregnant cows up to 25%;
• Dairy cows up to 25%;
• Calves up to 20%;
• Piglets up to 15%;
• Fattening pigs up to 10%;
• Up to 15% pregnant queens;
• Up to 15% lactating queens;
• Poultry up to 20%.

High-protein soybean meal contains more protein and amino acids, so its proportion in the feed is on average 1% lower than usual.

Soybean meal is a mandatory product in the diet of:

• Young birds. In the first weeks of life, they eat little food, and soybean meal provides sufficient energy and protein for intensive growth.
• Dairy cows producing 3.5–4,000 kg of milk per year. The product corrects amino acid deficiencies and improves milk yield.

Soybean meal is of great importance in the feeding of dairy cows, especially high-yielding cows. It is known that the rumen microflora of cows with a milk yield of over 3,500 to 4,000 kg per year cannot fully meet the animal’s body’s essential amino acid requirements. The most accessible protein for enriching compound feeds with high-quality amino acid content is Soybean meal (cake, full-fat soybeans).

How does soybean meal affect animal performance?

• Chicken egg production increases by 22%
• Bull calves’ weight gain increases by 32%
• Piglet weight gain increases by 5%
• Chicken weight gain increases by 7%
• Cow milk yield increases by 2 liters per day
• Milk fat content increases from 3.6 to 4.2%
• Milk protein content increases from 2.7 to 3.4%

Fermented soybean meal improves growth, meat quality, and antioxidant status in fattening pigs. A new study by scientists at Sichuan Agricultural University (Xie et al., 2022) has shown that replacing conventional soybean meal with fermented soybean meal (FSS) in the diets of fattening pigs offers numerous benefits:

• Average daily weight gain increased by 23% (1093 versus 889 g/day).
• Digestibility of dry matter, protein, ash, and fat improved significantly.
• Antioxidant status in serum (catalase, total AOA) and muscle (total AOA) increased, and malondialdehyde content (a marker of oxidative stress) in muscle decreased by 50%. Due to the improved antioxidant protection, pigs fed FSS showed improved meat quality indicators:
  • A tendency towards a decrease in pH and an increase in redness (a*) of the meat
  • Intramuscular fat content increased by 49%. Fermented soybean meal also influenced the expression of genes related to metabolism and muscle fiber type in the longissimus muscle:
    • Increased FASN and PEPCK mRNA levels (lipogenesis) and decreased GCK (glycogenesis)
    • Increased expression of genes for slow and intermediate muscle fibers (MyHC I and IIa). Thus, fermentation improves the nutritional value of soybean meal and stimulates growth, antioxidant status, and meat quality in pigs. This opens up new possibilities for ration optimization and increased profitability in pig farming!