Feeding trials
with cows and pigs

SLU and Naturbruksförvaltningen have carried out feeding trials with cows, heifers, growing pigs and sows at the Sötåsen Farm School. Silage was pressed in the biorefinery, and the fibre pulp was fed to cows and heifers and the press juice replaced part of the feed for pigs.

The control group in the trials received silage and concentrate feed and in the pig trials concentrate feed and water were used for wet feeding. Neither pregnant sows nor growing pigs was fed press juice, instead of a less portion of concentrate feed and water, showed any differences in weight or carcass change compared to the control group, suggesting that the pigs were able to assimilate the nutrients in the pressed juice (Presto, M. et al 2022). The studies in which the fibre pulp completely replaced silage in the diet of cows showed no differences in weight.

However, dairy cows produced slightly less milk after a period of time in the group receiving fibre pulp, indicating that cows can absorb the nutrients in fibre pulp and that fibre pulp needs to be mixed in a smaller amount with silage to avoid production reduction (Sousa, D. et al 2022). In contrast, heifers fed fibre pulp grew as well as heifers fed silage when they received slightly more concentrate than the silage group.

Feeding trials with cows and pigs at Sötåsen Farm School

Want to know more?

If you want to know more or have questions you’ll find the contact people for this work package down below.

Elisabet Nadeau
Elisabet NadeauResearch leader & Associate professor
Elisabet Nadeau is research leader and associate professor at the Department of Animal Environment and Health, SLU in Skara and at Hushållningssällskapet Sjuhärad, Länghem. Her research deals with feed evaluation, ensiling and ruminant nutrition in close collaboration with the agricultural industry, including the Agroväst dairy programme. Elisabet leads the feed evaluation and feeding experiments and shares the responsibility for the biogas trials in Green Valleys.
Anna Wallenbeck
Anna WallenbeckAssociate Professor
I work with applied research related to sustainable animal production systems, with focus on animal welfare, breeding and production. I am Senior Lecture in Animal Welfare and Associate Professor in Animal Production Systems.

Materials from the trials

Here you’ll find all the documentation and images from this trial.

Sötåsen School of Agriculture

During the spring of 2020, the demonstration facility for green biorefining was established at the Sötåsen School of Agriculture outside Töreboda.