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Effects of corn particle size, complete diet grinding, and diet form on 11- to 20-kg nursery pig growth performance and caloric efficiency
A total of 996 mixed sex pigs (initially 11.1 kg BW and 40-d of age) were used in a 21-d study to determine the effects of corn particle size, complete diet grinding, and diet form on growth performance. Pigs were allotted to 1 of 6 dietary treatments (6 pens/treatment and 28 pigs/pen) in a completely randomized design. The same corn-soybean meal-based diet containing 30% corn dried distillers grains with solubles (DDGS) and 10% wheat middlings (midds) was used for all treatments. The 6 treatments were: 1) roller-mill ground corn (737 µ) fed in meal form; 2) treatment 1 fed in pellet form; 3) hammer-mill ground corn (324 µ) fed in meal form; 4) treatment 3 fed in pellet form; 5) complete mixed diet reground through a hammer-mill (541 µ) fed in meal form; and 6) treatment 5 in pellet form. Overall (d 0 to 21), a tendency (P<0.09) for a diet form × corn particle size interaction was found as ADG and ADFI decreased when corn was finely ground and fed in meal form, but increased when fed in pelleted form. Reducing particle size of the corn did not influence G:F. There were no effects of fine grinding the complete mixed diet compared to only grinding the corn. Pelleting diets improved (P<0.04) ADG, G:F, ME and NE caloric efficiencies (Mcal/kg gain), and final BW. The interaction of diet form × corn particle size and numerical decreases in intake of pigs fed fine ground complete diet, suggests that finely ground feed fed in meal form may reduce palatability of the diet; however, fine grinding may improve performance if the diet is pelleted. In conclusion, pelleting diets significantly improved performance and fine grinding corn tended to improve performance when fed in pelleted form. No additional improvements were found when the complete mixed diet was finely ground compared to only grinding corn.
Treatment: |
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
|
Portion ground: |
--- |
--- |
Corn |
Corn |
Diet |
Diet |
|
Item Diet form: |
Meal |
Pellet |
Meal |
Pellet |
Meal |
Pellet |
SEM |
ADG, kg |
421 |
430 |
402 |
454 |
416 |
451 |
11 |
ADFI, kg |
650 |
627 |
632 |
658 |
641 |
644 |
14 |
G:F |
0.649 |
0.686 |
0.636 |
0.690 |
0.650 |
0.701 |
0.009 |
Caloric efficiency, Mcal/kg gain |
|
|
|
|
|
||
ME |
5.18 |
4.90 |
5.28 |
4.87 |
5.17 |
4.79 |
0.07 |
NE |
3.72 |
3.53 |
3.80 |
3.50 |
3.72 |
3.44 |
0.05 |
Final BW, kg |
20.1 |
20.3 |
19.6 |
20.7 |
20.0 |
20.6 |
0.4 |
Keywords: DDGS, feed processing, nursery pig, wheat middlings