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Effects of dietary inclusion level of distillers dried grains with solubles (DDGS) and high-protein distillers dried grains (HP-DDG) on the growth performance and carcass characteristics of wean-to-finish pigs
The objective was to evaluate the effect of dietary levels of DDGS (10% crude fat level) and HP-DDG (5% crude fat level) on the wean-to-finish growth performance and carcass and pork quality characteristics of finished pigs. A RCBD was used with a 3 x 4 factorial arrangement of dietary treatments: 1) HP-DDG inclusion level (0, 10, 20 and 30%) and 2) DDGS inclusion level (0, 15 and 30%). Six replicates with a total of 2,448 pigs, housed in mixed-gender pens (50% barrows and 50% gilts) of 34 were used. Growth performance was evaluated from weaning (5.9 ± 0.10 kg) to wk 20 post-weaning (107.6 ± 6.86 kg); pigs were sent for harvest to a commercial facility at a mean pen BW of 123.8 ± 1.48 kg. No carcass or pork quality data were collected for pigs on the 30% HP-DDG inclusion level because low weight at the end of the study period. There were HP-DDG by DDGS level treatment interactions (P < 0.05) for ADG and ADFI. For the 0% HP-DDG diet, there was no effect (P > 0.05) of DDGS inclusion level on ADG (0.775, 0.767 and 0.763 kg/day for the 0, 15 and 30% DDGS inclusion levels) or ADFI (1.87, 1.89 and 1.88 kg/day for the 0, 15 and 30% DDGS inclusion levels respectively); however, for the other HP-DDG inclusion levels, ADG and ADFI were linearly reduced with increasing DDGS level with the magnitude of the reduction increasing with HP-DDG inclusion level (ADG from 0.755 to 0.623 kg/day and ADFI from 1.87 to 1.513 kg/day from the 0% DDGS and 0% HP-DDG inclusion levels to the 30% DDGS and 30% HP-DDG inclusion levels respectively; P < 0.05). There was no effect (P > 0.05) of either HP-DDG or DDGS inclusion level on G:F. Increasing the dietary level of both HP-DDG and DDGS was associated with linear reductions (P < 0.05) in carcass yield (from 75.1 to 73.5% for the 0% and 20% HP-DDG levels, and 74.9 to 73.2% for the 0% and 30% DDGS levels), Longissimus muscle depth (from 6.46 to 5.98 and 6.29 to 6.14 cm for HP-DDG and DDGS, respectively), and belly flop distance (from 23.9 to 17.6 and 22.6 to 19.0 cm for HP-DDG and DDGS, respectively). These results suggest that DDGS can be included at up to 30% in diets without compromising growth performance of wean-to-finish pigs. However, growth performance was increasingly compromised at higher inclusion levels of both co-products and belly firmness was negatively affected by increasing levels of both DDGS and HP-DDG.
Keywords: pigs, growth, DDGS, high protein DDG