According to Teagasc, pig prices took a "huge hit" this past month, with an unprecedented 20 cent/kg drop over a fortnight.

In its latest Pig Newsletter, Teagasc said: "While it could be argued that the first 10 cent/kg drop was a realigning of Irish pig price with the European one, but the second 10 cent/kg drop a week later is really difficult to explain".

"This was a massive blow to a sector that is still recovering from being on its knees less than two years ago."

Also in the newsletter, Teagasc described how it has been analysing cereals for over a year as part of its feed and feedstuffs analysis programme for the pig sector.

The results of the analysis has shown a consistent decrease in crude protein in the 2023 and 2024 barley and wheat harvests,with the variations outlined in the table below.

This led Teagasc to query what is taking the place of the crude protein in wheat and barley.

The newsletter highlighted that whilst the sum of the other nutrients does increase with crude protein, so far fat, fibre, ash and sugar do not seem to follow a similar predictable pattern.

However, Teagasc pointed out their analysis indicates that that dry matter and starch content do seem to have a closer link to crude protein levels, as shown in the table below.

According to Teagasc, this is because less moisture in the grain allows more space for nutrients. In addition, the lower the protein in the cereal the higher the starch.

Teagasc said: "As wheat and barley are bought mainly for their starch content, this isn't a bad outcome."

"However, additional starch doesn’t necessarily mean that the energy of an ingredient is higher."

The newsletter highlighted that protein is also a contributor to the energy of a cereal, which means that barley with 8% crude protein could potentially have the same energy as barley with 11% crude protein when incorporated into a diet.

As higher concentrate protein levels usually result in increased purchase cost per tonne of feed, this can affect profitability on farm.

For example, in a case where barley is 60% of the diet, using the 8% crude barley vs an 11% crude protein barley would lead to a decrease of 1.8% dietary crude protein with little or no energy decrease, according to the newsletter.

Teagasc said this example shows that as pigs eat to energise, farmers may be under or oversupplying protein to them.

The Teagasc research highlighted how diet consistency can vary, even when using the same formulation.

In one example, two finisher diets made to the same recipe just 10 days apart showed crude protein levels of 14.6% and 17.3%, while lysine levels were measured at 1.04% and 1.16%, respectively.

The target lysine level was the average of these two. As synthetic lysine accounted for 42% of the total dietary lysine in these two diets, its addition helped buffer the impact of the crude protein inclusion on lysine availability.

The newsletter also highlighted that the two diets had identical energy content. This meant that while the pigs consumed similar amounts of feed each week, those receiving the second batch had significantly more crude protein.

According to Teagasc: "While pigs may still perform adequately on the 14.6% crude protein diet, the 17.3% batch represents a potential overspend.

"In fact, this difference could amount to an estimated cost of €3.50/t - highlighting the importance of consistent diet mixing and regular feed testing."