Feeding an activated animal protein improves sow and offspring performance

Abstract Text: This experiment evaluated the effects of feeding an activated animal protein (betaGRO^TM) on reproductive performance of sows and growth performance of their piglets. A total of 254 sows (PIC 1050) selected from a commercial herd were allotted randomly to diets containing 0 (CON) or 1.0 g/kg betaGRO^TM (bG) in gestation and lactation resulting in approximately 127 sows per treatment. Offspring (n = 1,242) were blocked by weaning BW within sow diet and split to feed CON or bG (3.0, 1.5, 1.0, 1.0 g/kg for phases 1, 2, 3 and 4 respectively) resulting in 11 or 12 pens/treatment for 54-d post-weaning. Data were analyzed using the MIXED procedure of SAS for a 2 x 2 split-plot design with fixed effects of sow diet, nursery diet and their interactions. Compared with CON, feeding bG to sows significantly reduced percentage of small pigs at birth (BW≤1.13 kg; 29.6 vs. 33.3%, P = 0.05), improved pig weaning weight by 4.3% (5.75 vs. 5.51 kg, P = 0.005), and reduced sow wean-estrus intervals by 1.1 d (4.5 vs. 5.6 d, P = 0.05). In the early nursery phase (d 0 to 22), pigs from sows fed bG showed 16.6% greater ADG (P < 0.001), 12.2% greater ADFI (P < 0.001) and 5.0% greater G:F (P = 0.04) than those from sows fed CON. In the late nursery phase (d 22 to 54), ADG and ADFI were both increased (P = 0.01) in pigs from sows fed bG, but G:F was not affected by sow diet. During the overall nursery period (d 0 to 54), feeding bG to sows resulted in greater ADG (371.4 vs. 348.6 g/day, P < 0.001) and ADFI (545.5 vs. 510.5 g/day, P < 0.001) in their offspring. The final BW of pigs from sows fed bG was 4.7% greater than those from sows fed CON (25.8 vs. 24.6 kg, P = 0.001). Feeding bG in nursery diets improved ADG (P = 0.04) and tended to improve ADFI (P = 0.07) and G:F (P = 0.08) compared with feeding CON in the early nursery phase, but did not show effects in the late nursery or overall phases. These results indicate that feeding an activated animal protein to sows in gestation and lactation positively affects sow and litter performance and also improves growth performance of their offspring in the nursery phase.

Keywords: activated animal protein, growth performance, reproductive performance