Influence of protein sources on nursery pig performance

Abstract Text: The objective of this study was to determine the impact of various protein sources on the performance of nursery pigs. A total of 462 nursery pigs (BW was 6.76 ± 0.30 kg) were placed into 2 nursery rooms of 12 pens each (17 to 20 pigs/pen) under commercial conditions. Dietary treatments consisted of: fish meal (FM; special select menhaden); blended protein product (BP; avian, porcine, marine and vegetable protein by-products; NutriPak, H.J.Baker & Bro., Inc); poultry meal (PM; pet-food grade) and soybean meal supplemented with high levels of synthetic amino acids (SBM+AA). Pigs were fed a 3-phase feeding program, with each period being 12 to 14 d in duration. Inclusion of FM, BP, and PM were 7.5, 7.5 and 10% for phase 1 and 3.75, 3.75 and 4.25% for phase 2, respectively. During phase 3, pigs were fed a common diet consisting primarily of corn, wheat and SBM. Diets contained 3.43 Mcal/kg ME and 1.40, 1.35 and 1.25% SID lysine for phase 1, 2, and 3, respectively. Feed consumption during phase 1 was reduced (P<0.05) for pigs fed PM compared to all other treatments (302, 313, 282 and 305 g/d; for FM, BP, PM and SBM+AA, respectively). During phase 3, ADFI was lower (P<0.05) for pigs fed PM compared to other treatments, but not compared to pigs fed FM. Overall, ADFI was lower for pigs fed PM compared to BP, but it was not different from the other treatments (600, 618, 581 and 602 g/d; for FM, BP, PM and SBM+AA, respectively). Poultry meal reduced (P<0.05) ADG during phase 1, 3 and overall (243, 248, 213, 254 g/d; 626, 634, 598, 636 g/d and 442, 449, 411, 446g/d for FM, BP, PM and SBM+AA, respectively). Consequently, pigs fed PM were lighter (P<0.05) than pigs fed other diets (24.15, 24.32, 23.19 and 24.29kg; for FM, BP, PM and SBM+AA, respectively). For the overall period, gain:feed was reduced (P<0.05) for pigs fed PM compared to other diets but was not different from BP (0.739, 0.727, 0.706 and 0.735; for FM, BP, PM and SBM+AA, respectively). Results suggest that the use of PM in nursery diets resulted in inferior performance compared to FM, BP and SBM+AA. Although the SBM+AA diet is not typically used in weanling pigs due to potential pig weight and age variations, it performed equal to the FM and BP in this study.

Keywords: Nursery pigs, Protein sources, Performance.