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Effect of corn ethanol co-products in a liquid feed system on growth performance of wean to finish pigs
The objective of the current study was to determine the ratio of wet distiller’s grains (WDG) to condensed distiller’s solubles (CDS) on the performance of wean to finish pigs fed via a computer-based automatic liquid feeding system. Early weaned pigs (18-d old; Topigs 20 X Compart Duroc (n=280)) were allotted randomly to 1 of 4 dietary treatments (10 pigs/pen 7 pens/treatment). The dietary treatments were: 1) corn-soybean meal basal diet (CSBM) with 20% dried distiller’s grain with solubles (DDGS); 2) CSBM with 20% WDG (WDG); 3) CSBM with 17% WDG plus 3% CDS (WDG -CDS-1); and 4) CSBM with 14% WDG plus 6% CDS (WDG-CDS-2). Pigs were blocked by initial BW (11 ± 1.6 kg), and the experiment began 2 weeks post-weaning to finishing (126 days on trial) using a 5-phase feeding program. Pen was the experimental unit. Data were analyzed by the MIXED procedure of SAS, with treatment as a fixed effect and block as a random effect. Data were expressed as means±SE. Significance level was set at P ≤ 0.05. The overall ADG was 0.912, 0.934, 0.957, and 0.937 kg/d, ADFI on a dry matter basis 2.81, 2.50, 2.55, and 2.54 kg/d, and gain to feed ratio 0.370, 0.427, 0.426, and 0.417, for treatments 1 to 4, respectively. Overall ADG was higher (P = 0.05) in the WDG-CDS-1 treatment compared with the DDGS treatment, but there was no difference (P > 0.05) in ADG among DDGS, WDG and WDG-CDS-2 treatments. Additionally, WDG, WDG-CDS-1 and WDG-CDS-2 had lower (P = 0.001) overall ADFI than DDGS fed pigs. Overall G:F of DDGS- fed pigs was less (P = 0.001) than pigs fed the other 3 dietary treatments. Final BW of WDG-CDS-1 fed pigs was greater (P=0.02) than pigs fed DDGS. Dietary treatments did not influence (P > 0.05) BUN concentration. Thus, WDG and the combinations of WDG and CDS have beneficial effect on growth performance compared with DDGS.
Keywords: pigs, liquid feeding, growth performance