Vitamin Supplementation

Because some vitamins are not produced by pigs or have low bioavailability in feed ingredients, vitamins are routinely supplemented to grow-finish diets. While the NRC (2012) recommends vitamin requirements which include amounts from feed ingredients (total vitamin levels), standard practice is to only consider vitamins provided by the premix (added vitamin levels). Also, vitamins contained in the premix are typically formulated above NRC (2012) recommendations to provide a margin of safety that accounts for low bioavailability in ingredients, differences in daily feed intakes, or degradation due to storage and feed processing (Flohr et al., 2016).

Fact Sheet: Vitamin and Minerals