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Chromium yeast in diet for early finishing pigs
To evaluate the use of chromium yeast in diets for pigs during the early finishing phase a total of 72 castrated male pigs (72.10 ± 3.38 kg) genetically selected for lean deposition (DanBred x DanBred genetic lines) were allotted in a randomized block design with two treatments, a control diet (CN) or control diet + chromium yeast (CrY) with eight replicates and two animals per experimental unit. Diets were formulated to meet or exceed the nutritional requirements of pigs proposed by Rostagno et al. (2011). Chromium yeast was added at 400 ppb to the CN diet formulated to contain 3300 kcal/kg ME, 15.39, 0.87, 0.54 and 0.24% CP, SID Lys, Ca and P, respectively, in a corn and soybean meal based diets. Pigs had free access to feed and water throughout the experimental period (14 days). Daily feed waste during the total period was manually collected and weighed. Pigs were weighed at the beginning and at the end of the experimental period to calculate average daily gain (ADG), average daily feed intake (ADFI), and feed conversion rate (F:G). Data were analysed using GLIMMIX procedure of SAS (SAS Inst., Cary, NC) with blocks as randomized effect and treatment as fixed effects and means were compared by F test at 5% of probability. No differences (P<0.05) were observed from 0 to 14 days for final BW, ADG, ADFI, and F:G between pigs fed CN or CrY diet. The performance of pigs from 72 to 88 kg was greater than what is suggested for pigs with high genetic potential, which may have limited the effect of chromium in this phase. The chromium yeast not improve the performance results when used in diet for finishing pigs for a short period.
Table 1 – Performance of pigs fed control (CN) or control + chromium yeast (CrY) diet from 72 to 88 kg during 14 days.
Parameters |
CN |
CrY |
P-value |
Initial BW, (kg) |
71.98 |
72.21 |
0.436 |
Final BW, (kg) |
87.82 |
88.16 |
0.551 |
ADG, (kg) |
1.13 |
1.15 |
0.629 |
ADFI, (Kg) |
3.14 |
3.05 |
0.278 |
F:G |
2.79 |
2.71 |
0.322 |
Keywords: additives, microminerals, swine.