Diet nutrient digestibility and growth performance of weaned pigs fed canola meal samples varying in nutritive quality

Abstract Text: Canola meal (CM) is a supplemental protein feedstuff for swine, but its nutritive quality varies more than SBM. The implications of variation in CM quality on diet nutrient digestibility and growth performance of weaned pigs are unclear. Thus, 240 pigs (BW, 9.6 kg; 4 pigs/pen) were weaned at 19 days of age and were fed a 20% SBM diet or 4 diets containing 20% CM solvent-extracted from common dark-seeded Brassica napus starting 2 wk post-weaning for 4 wk (d 1–28). The 4 CM samples were sourced from 4 crushing plants in Western Canada and contained (DM-basis) 39.7–46.2% CP, 3.4–4.1% ether extract, 17.5–21.4% ADF, and 1.2–8.0 µmoles/g total glucosinolates. Pelleted wheat-based diets were formulated to provide 2.3 Mcal NE/kg and 5.1 g standard ileal digestible (SID) Lys/Mcal NE. Inclusion of CM instead of SBM reduced (P < 0.001) diet apparent total tract digestibility (ATTD) of DM by 3.7%-units, of GE by 3.6%-units, and of CP by 4.0%-units. The DE value of CM diets was similar to, but their predicted NE value was 0.02 Mcal/kg greater (P = 0.027) than that of the SBM diet. Among the 4 CM diets, ATTD of DM, GE, and CP did not differ. Growth performance of pigs fed the 4 CM diets did not differ from pigs fed SBM except for greater (P < 0.05) G:F for d 1–7 and for the entire trial. Among the 4 CM diets, ADFI (973–1047 g/d) and ADG (650–686 g/d) differed (P < 0.05) for the entire trial. However, G:F did not differ among the 4 CM diets for the entire trial. In conclusion, inclusion of 20% CM from 4 crushing plants to replace SBM did not reduce feed intake, weight gain, or feed efficiency in weaned pigs indicating that variation in nutritive quality among the 4 Brassica napus CM samples did not affect growth performance of young pigs.

Keywords: growth performance, pig, canola meal