EvaPig

Frequently Asked Questions

• How to install EvaPig®?
• How can I backup my ingredients and diets or move them to another computer?
• Is EvaPig® working with Windows 95, 98 and 2000?
• Is EvaPig® available for Mac OS X and Linux?
• Will EvaPig® be available in my language and when?
• I want to use an ingredient that is absent from the EvaPig® database? What should I do?
• Are the equations and coefficients used in EvaPig® available?
• How accurate are the reference data in EvaPig®?
• How accurate are the predicted data in EvaPig®?
• I have data that is not in the EvaPig® database. Could this data be part of a future release?
• I disagree with some of the values in the reference database. What should I do?
• How can I get back the numerical data concerning the ingredients or the diets?
• Will my ingredients and diets be preserved when I update EvaPig®?
• Nowadays, I use the DE or ME systems for pigs. If I want to move to the NE system for evaluating my feeds, how can I express the energy requirements of pigs according to that NE system?
• If I use exogenous phytase for preparing a diet, Evapig requires the definition of phytase "type". What’s the meaning of this criterion and how can I know it?
• I do not have the font “Arial Unicode MS” and I would like to generate PDF files.

• How to install EvaPig®?
  After having downloaded the EvaPigSetup.exe file from the website, click on the file name and follow the instructions. You can choose to launch the tutorial right after the installation.
• How can I backup my ingredients and diets or move them to another computer?

  The file containing your data is called User.sqb and is located in the following directory, depending on your Windows version:

  Vista : C:\Users\Yourname\AppData\Roaming\EvaPig

  XP : C:\Documents and Settings\YourName\Application Data\EvaPig

  To open the EvaPig® database directory: click on the Windows “Start” menu, then on “All programs”, “EvaPig”, and “Database” to open the folder containing the user data.

• Is EvaPig® working with Windows 95, 98 and 2000?
  There are issues with Windows 95/98 due to the Unicode font system so these systems may not be able to run EvaPig®. EvaPig® has not been tested with Windows 2000 but should work.
• Is EvaPig® available for Mac OS X and Linux?
  EvaPig® has only been developed and tested with Windows XP and Vista and we do not plan to port it to other operating systems. However, we plan to test it under Mac OS X (using BootCamp) and Linux (using WINE).
• Will EvaPig® be available in my language and when?

  EvaPig®’s interface will be available in many languages that are listed in the download page. Note that we plan to translate EvaPig® into languages using non-latin fonts such as Russian, Japanese or Chinese, but the technical feasibility has not been assessed yet.

  It is difficult to provide exact release dates as the translation of scientific texts must be very accurate, requires specialists and therefore takes more time than for regular texts. If you want to be informed about the availability of new languages, please check the corresponding checkbox before downloading.

• I want to use an ingredient that is absent from the EvaPig® database? What should I do?

  If the ingredient is closely related to an ingredient that is already in the database, use this reference ingredient as a basis, provide the chemical composition of your ingredient and EvaPig® will calculate the nutritional values using ingredient-specific equations. This is the recommended method and the most accurate. If you think that the energy values are under- or overestimated, you will even be able to customize the results by adding a positive or negative bonus.

  If the new ingredient is not related to any reference ingredient, provide a chemical composition as complete as possible and EvaPig® will estimate its values using generic equations. The prediction should be reasonably accurate unless the ingredient’s composition is extreme in some way (for instance if it contains a large amount of anti-nutritional factors).

  The authors of EvaPig® are also very interested in adding new ingredients to the reference database, so if you want certain ingredients to be added in the future, let us know through the contact page.

  EvaPig® will be updated regularly with new ingredients; so if you want to be informed about the availability of new versions, please check the corresponding checkbox before downloading.

• Are the equations and coefficients used in EvaPig® available?
  The equations and coefficients used in EvaPig®, as well as detailed instructions about how to use them, are available in the document named “Equations and coefficients” present in “Help”, “Manual and Equations” on the website.
• How accurate are the reference data in EvaPig®?
  The reference data are derived, for the nutritional values, from digestibility experiments carried out at INRA and other well-known research institutes. The chemical compositions come from the hundreds of thousands of ingredients data stored in the French Feed Database. The reference data in EvaPig® are as accurate as possible given the variability due to animals, experimental protocols, ingredients and feeds. However, reference data are representative data points, not official norms. Particularly, the natural variability of ingredients makes reference data insufficient for assessing the nutritional values of actual ingredients and diets. Measuring chemical composition can be relatively inexpensive, but nutritional values require costly experiments. This is why EvaPig® provides a way to calculate nutritional values for new ingredients using built-in equations.
• How accurate are the predicted data in EvaPig®?
  EvaPig® uses equations based on the latest research at INRA to predict energy values (for diets and ingredients) and to calculate phosphorus digestibility (for diets). These equations are as accurate as current research allows it. EvaPig® makes it possible to create new ingredients either by using a reference ingredient as a basis, or by using the new ingredient’s composition only. Using a reference ingredient results in more accurate predictions of energy values because part of the equations are ingredient-specific and the calculations are based on the data of the reference ingredient. When the calculations are based only on the composition of the new ingredient (or diet), the equations used will be generic and will not take into account the ingredient’s specificities (such as anti-nutritional factors or cell wall structure). In any case, predictions are only predictions: their precision depends on many factors, not all of which are known, and users should always exercise caution when using predicted values.
• I have data that is not in the EvaPig® database. Could this data be part of a future release?
  Definitely yes! Of course, these data will have to meet certain requirements concerning its scientific quality, but if you have such data and are willing to share them with us, please contact us through the contact form.
• I disagree with some of the values in the reference database. What should I do?

  If you think that a reference ingredient is not representative of the ingredients you have, you can create your own ingredients with corrected values.

  If you think that a reference ingredient contains erroneous data, please send us a message through the contact form so that we can have a look and possibly correct the data in a future release.

• How can I get back the numerical data concerning the ingredients or the diets?
  When you view an ingredient or a diet, you have the possibility to export data by clicking on the “CSV” button. The created file will allow you to get back the numerical data.
• Will my ingredients and diets be preserved when I update EvaPig®?
  Yes. Updating EvaPig® to a new version does not erase the data you created with the previous versions.
• Nowadays, I use the DE or ME systems for pigs. If I want to move to the NE system for evaluating my feeds, how can I express the energy requirements of pigs according to that NE system?
  First, it is highly recommended to use the same energy system for expressing the energy requirements of animals and the energy values of feeds. For pigs, it has been demonstrated that the NE system available for pig feeds has a higher ability of prediction of pigs performance; it is then highly preferable to use it both for estimating the energy value of feeds and the energy requirements of pigs. For cereals and soybean meal based diets, the efficiency of DE for NE in growing pigs averages 71%; the corresponding efficiency of ME for NE is 74%. In addition, energy requirements of pigs, either daily energy requirements or more simply, the energy concentration of a diet, have been quantified in most situations with cereals and soybean meal based diets whose efficiencies of DE or ME for NE average 71 and 74%, respectively. Consequently, your DE or ME recommendations for pigs can be transformed into NE recommendations as 0.71 x DE or 0.74 x ME. Complementary information on this topic is available in articles at EvaPig
• If I use exogenous phytase for preparing a diet, Evapig requires the definition of phytase "type". What’s the meaning of this criterion and how can I know it?
  The characterisation of a phytase source is first its in vitro phytase activity expressed as FTU per g of product (10 000 for instance). That information is available on the product tag. However, for a given phytase activity in a complete feed (for instance at the conventional 500 FTU/g of feed), the amount of phytic phosphorus (P) that will be available for the pig may vary according to the phytase origin. The average value would be 0.65 g of P per 500 FTU of phytase and it ranges between 0.50 and 0.90-0.95 g per 500 FTU of phytase. This value corresponds to the so-called type of phytase and is available at your provider technical service; it can also be available in technical or scientific publications. Complementary information on this topic is available in articles at EvaPig.
• I do not have the font “Arial Unicode MS” and I would like to generate PDF files.
  When the font “Arial Unicode MS” is not installed, the generation of files from the "PDF" buttons of EvaPig is likely not to function correctly. In that case, you can use an external generator installed in your computer; Adobe Acrobat is the most popular but free softwares such as pdfCreator are also available. While clicking on the "Print" button, you will be able then to choose the PDF virtual printer (Adobe, etc.) in order to obtain a file corresponding to what is displayed on the screen. The font “Arial Unicode MS” is practically the only font able to represent a text in any language. Therefore, this font is necessary to display the characters of languages other than yours. However, we hope to solve this problem of generation of PDF files over coming months.

EvaPig® is registered by INRA (French National Institute for Agricultural Research), Ajinomoto Eurolysine SAS and AFZ (French association for animal production).
Copyright 2008 INRA - Ajinomoto Eurolysine SAS - AFZ