Black Soldier Fly A Great Protein Substitute to Soybean Meal For Pigs

During weaning, piglets experience concurrent social, physical, and nutritional stressors. Therefore, piglets often have poor feed intake and display increased oral manipulative behaviours post-weaning, indicating compromised welfare.

Black Soldier Fly (BSF) is proven to be a more suitable and sustainable protein source based on major research. It possesses many attractive properties for pigs and could therefore function as effective edible enrichment. It also reduces weaning stress by facilitating exploration and promoting feed intake.

To prove this, researchers studied two groups of growing pigs to compare the soybean diet and the BSF diet. Using the FeedOmics approach, obtained data on the microbiota of the small intestine and metabolites in the blood of the pigs, they gathered results that suggested that BSF supports the growth of gut microbial taxa that are either indicators of a healthy gut or are recognized as beneficial microbes that have positive effects on pig health. In simple terms, pigs that were given the BSF diet appeared to be healthier than those on the soybean diet.

These discoveries will help livestock breeders in their search for sustainable alternative protein sources that could result in better revenue.