Ralco announced today it has launched its revitalized swine nursery nutrition program, Tactical Start™. The launch of Tactical Start marks continued advancement in Ralco’s nursery nutrition products. Tactical Start nursery nutrition is built on driving early feed intake, providing ultra-complex, easily digestible diets, and focusing on digestive capacity. This approach concentrates on setting pigs up for success by achieving more uniform, consistent pigs resulting in improved performance throughout production.
The impact of high mortality rates, culls and lightweight pigs cutting into profitability is an issue many operations struggle with daily. Challenges in piglet consistency and performance could be a sign that the nursery nutrition program is missing its mark.
“Early life nutrition is an opportunity to foster uniformity,” Dr. Russell Fent, Director of Ralco’s Swine Technical Group explains. “The nursery phase is an ideal time to invest in a nutrition program that will set up an operation for success in the finishing barn. We know the largest increase in production profitability can be found in the bottom 30% of pigs. Once these pigs are left behind it’s difficult to get them caught back up.”
Over the last two decaes, sow prolificacy has improved due to advancements in genetics and nutrition resulting in larger litter sizes. However, as piglets per sow per year increases, the size and weight of the piglets decreases. These lightweight piglets pose an economic problem as higher numbers of disadvantaged piglets now enter the nursery. Getting piglets off to a strong start with proper early life nutrition is an opportunity to create uniformity, growth and performance.
The Ralco swine nutrition team firmly believes the most important diet a pig will ever eat is its first. “Tactical Start diets are built accordingly, paying special attention to getting pigs on a feed early that is easy to digest to power them through multiple sources of stress after weaning,” Dr. Fent explains. “Our priority is on using easily digestible ingredients that foster digestive development and growth. By feeding diets that match a pig’s age and digestive capacity, we ensure the gut remains strong and capable of absorbing more nutrients for increased animal health and weight gain.”
Ralco has been researching swine nursery nutrition for decades and continues to evolve and innovate their nursery nutrition program to support a rapidly changing swine market. Tactical Start nursery nutrition is available in a crumble or meal form with product options that also include no porcine and no animal product.
About Ralco
Ralco is a third-generation family-owned multinational company with distribution in more than 40 countries. Ralco is a leading global supplier of solutions that enable nutrition conversion. Our products impact livestock, crop and aquaculture production around the world. Learn more at https://ralcoagriculture.com/.