Managerial and nutritional manipulation to reduce swine odor

The research reported in this thesis addresses three areas, namely iron bioavailability, dust/odor reduction technologies, and dietary manipulation to reduce urine pH and swine odor. The first section, iron bioavailability, contains three experiments which were conducted as hemoglobin depletion/repletion studies involving newly weaned iron-deprived piglets. The experiments determined the iron bioavailability of an iron-amino acid chelate, the effect of initial blood hemoglobin on iron bioavailability, and the effect of iron supplementation and source on iron bioavailability. Results of these studies determined an iron bioavailability relative to ferrous sulfate of 97.56%, that initial hemoglobin had a significant (P < 0.05) effect on estimates of iron bioavailability and lastly that both supplementation and source affected final hemoglobin concentration. The second section of this thesis describes four studies conducted to investigate the efficacy of various technologies and management practices in reducing swine house dust and odor. Within this section, two areas were investigated; firstly oil spraying and dietary fat supplementation to reduce swine house dust and secondly ozonation to reduce production of swine house odor. The first area investigated the effect of oil spraying, fat supplementation, and a comparison of oil spraying versus fat supplementation. Results indicated that both oil spraying and dietary fat supplementation were effective in reducing swine house dust while the comparison study confirmed that oil spraying was more effective than dietary fat supplementation in dust reduction capability. The third and last section of this thesis pertains to dietary manipulation to reduce urine pH, ammonia volatilization, and ultimately swine odor. Four studies involving grow-finish pigs were conducted to investigate the effect of fiber source, source and inclusion of dietary acidifiers, crude protein level, and finally the effect of crude protein level on acidified diets. Results indicated fiber source had no effect on urine pH; however, dietary acidifiers were effective in significantly reducing urine pH. While reduction of crude protein level alone had no significant effect on urine pH, reducing crude protein level of acidified diets did significantly reduce urine pH.