Effects of Feeding a Finishing Diet Blended with Different Phases of Nursery Diets on Growth Performance of Nursery Pigs.

In wean-to-finish systems, nursery diets are commonly blended with leftover finishing feed from the previous group. A total of 1,260 pigs (initially 5.83 ± 0.21 kg and 21 d) were housed in a commercial research facility and used in a 47-d study to determine the effects of blending finishing diet into different phases of nursery diets on growth performance. Pens of pigs were blocked by BW and gender and allotted to 1 of 4 treatments (15 pens/treatment). Treatments included: standard nursery diets throughout (Control); or standard diets with 2.5 kg/pig of late finishing feed (0.81% SID Lys) blended at the beginning of Phase 2, 3, or 4. Phase changes were based on feed budgets of 2.5, 3.7, 3.7, 9.5, and 9.5 kg/pig in phase 1 to 5, respectively. Feed additions were recorded by robotic feeding system. Data were analyzed using GLIMMIX in SAS with fixed effect of blending phase and random effects of weight block and gender. From d 0 to 7, all pigs were fed the same Phase 1 diet and had similar performance. Compared with the control, blending finishing feed into Phase 2 decreased (P<0.05) ADG, ADFI, and G:F from d 7 to 14, G:F from d 21 to 28, ADG from d 28 to 35, and ADFI and G:F from d 35 to 47. Blending finishing feed into Phase 3 decreased (P<0.05) ADG and G:F from d 14 to 21, ADG from d 21 to 28, and ADFI and G:F from d 35 to 47 compared with control pigs. Pigs that received finishing diet blended in Phase 4 had decreased (P<0.001) ADG and G:F from d 21 to 28, but increased (P=0.013) G:F from d 35 to 47. Overall, blending the finishing diet into Phase 2 decreased (P<0.05) ADG and ADFI, but did not affect G:F compared with control pigs or those that had blended diet in Phase 4. Blending finishing feed into Phase 3 or 4 did not influence overall growth performance. In conclusion, feeding finishing feed during early nursery phase decreased growth performance; however, blending approximately 2.5 kg/pig of late finishing feed into nursery diets for pigs greater than 10 kg did not affect overall growth performance.

		Blended diets
	Control	Phase 2	Phase 3	Phase 4	SEM	P-value
Overall
ADG, g	514a	493b	502ab	509a	5.4	0.031
ADFI, g	736a	711b	720ab	738a	8.3	0.045
abMeans with different superscripts within row differ (P<0.05).

See more of: Nonruminant Nutrition III: Nursery Pig I
See more of: Nonruminant Nutrition

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