Soybean Oil

Soybean oil is a vegetable oil extracted from the seeds of the soybean (Glycine max). It is one of the most widely consumed cooking oils and the second most consumed vegetable oil.

Soybean oil; increases absorption of ration nutrients and caloric density of ration, improves milk production, growth of heifers and tolerance to cold and heat for Dairy Cattle. For Beef Cattle, increases the tolerance of new-born calves to cold and weaning weights of calves. Also improves growth of heifers, rebreeding time of calving females and body condition.

For pigs, increases survival of piglets, number of pigs weaned per litter and sow conception rate in reduced time. Also, improves reproduction and condition of sows and rate of gain and feed efficiency. For poultry, improves egg production, carcass characteristics, utilisation of feed nutrients and feed efficiency. Also, increases egg mass.

Advantages of added fat in feed:

1. Enhanced utilization of dietary energy. This effect is apparently due to:
1. Decreased rate of passage and there-fore improved digestion and intestinal absorption
2. Synergistic enhancement of saturated fatty acid absorption in the presence of unsaturated fatty acids in basal diet
3. Lowered heat increment of the supplemented diet resulting in improved utilization of metabolizable energy
4. In addition to these energetic effects, fat may improve the physical characteristics and palatability of the diet to an extent that it promotes increased feed consumption
2. Increase growth performance and production
3. Provides essential fatty acids (EFA)
4. Fat is a concentrated source of energy, when added to diets it has been shown to increase stamina
5. Improves the absorption of fat-soluble vitamins, carotenoid pigments and all essential active ingredients (antioxidants)
6. Addition of fat in diets, besides supplying energy, reduces fines and broken pellets while at the same time increasing palatability and the efficiency of energy consumption with lower caloric increment
7. Dust control, improved formula density and of flowability in housing feed systems
8. Fat and oil can lubricate grinding, mixing and pelleting equipment and also reduce dust in feed
9. Vegetable oil from soybeans with high levels of essential fatty acids and phospholipids (lecithin and unidentified growth factors) improve performance and production in both poultry and swine

General recommendations for feeding supplementary fat to swine

Long-chain fatty acid (LCFA) and essential fatty acids are crucial to neonatal development.

They are necessary for the growth and development of brain, retinal and other body tissues.

For immune system supplementation, conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), due to the positional & geomatics isomers of linoleic acid, has a broad impact on the immune function of pigs. Dietary CLA supplementation to the maternal diet increases colostral IgG, IgA and IgM titers and serum IgG in the piglets at weaning

Crude soybean oil containing 1.2-1.8% lecithin is used as an emulsifier to improve growth performance in weaning/ grower/ finisher diets