The value-added soybean meals for swine experiments were conducted to evaluate the nutritional value of high protein soybean meal (SBM-HP), low oligosaccharide soybean meal (SBM-LO), and conventional soybean meal (SBM) fed to weanling pigs. The three soybean meals (SBM) contained 54.9, 53.6 and 47.5% crude protein, respectively. In the first experiment, the coefficient of ileal standardized digestibility (CISD) of amino acids (AA) in the three ingredients was measured using eight barrows weighing about 14.3kg were fitted with a T-cannula in the distal ileum. The pigs were allotted to a replicated 4×4 Latin square design with four periods (seven days per period) and four diets per square. Three diets contained SBM-HP, SBM-LO, or conventional SBM as the sole source of amino acid. The fourth diet was a N-free diet that was used to determine basal ileal endogenous losses of amino acid. Results of this experiment indicated that the CISD for all amino acids was not different among the three sources of SBM.

In the second experiment, the digestible energy (DE) and metabolizable energy (ME) in the three sources of SBM were determined using 24 barrows (weighting about 12kg). The pigs were randomly allotted to four diets; a corn-based diet and three diets containing corn and one of the three sources of SBM. Results indicated no differences were observed for DE (18.20, 17.92, 18.27, and 17.15MJ/kg dry matter) and ME (17.31, 16.93, 17.76, and 16.96MJ/kg dry matter) among SBM-HP, SBM-LO, SBM-CV, and corn diets.

In the third experiment, a total of 120 weanling barrows weighing about 6.8 kg were randomly allotted to three dietary treatments with ten pens per treatment and four pigs per pen. Diets containing the different sources of SBM were formulated based on the values for CISD of AA and ME that were calculated in the previous two experiments. No differences were observed during the experiment for average daily gain, average daily feed intake, or feed efficiency. The researchers concluded that the greater concentration of digestible amino acids in SBM-HP and SBM-LO compared with conventional SBM are effectively utilized by weanling pigs, which implies that the nutritional values of SBM-HP and SBM-LO are greater than that of conventional high-pro SBM.