Effects of added Defusion or Feed Aid on finishing pig growth performance from 20 to 110 kg

A total of 1,188 pigs (PIC 359×1050; initial BW 20.5 kg) were used in a 112-d growth trial to determine the effects of Defusion (Provimi, Brooksville, OH) or Feed Aid (NutriQuest, Mason City, IA) on finishing pig performance from 20 to 110 kg in a commercial setting. Defusion and Feed Aid are commercially available products containing sodium metabisulfite. Pens of pigs were blocked by BW and then randomly assigned to 1 of 4 dietary treatments with 27 pigs/pen and 11 pens/treatment. The four treatment diets included a corn-soybean meal-based diet, a corn-soybean meal-based diet containing 40% distillers dried grains with solubles (DDGS), or the DDGS diet with either 0.25% Defusion or 0.25% Feed Aid. Thiamine was included at 0.01 g/kg at the expense of corn when Defusion or Feed Aid was added to the DDGS diet. Mycotoxin analysis indicated the deoxynivalenol (DON) concentrations varied by treatment and phase, but all concentrations were less than 1 ppm. Data were analyzed as a randomized complete block design using PROC GLIMMIX (SAS Inst. Inc., Cary, NC) with pen as the experimental unit. From d 0 to 56, pigs, fed the corn-soy diet had greater (0.78 kg; P<0.05) ADG compared to pigs fed the DDGS (0.71 kg), Defusion (0.74 kg), or Feed Aid (0.72 kg), with no evidence for difference among pigs fed the diets with DDGS. Pigs fed the corn-soy diet had greater (1.60 kg; P<0.05) ADFI compared to pigs fed Feed Aid (1.49 kg), with pigs fed Defusion (1.54 kg) and DDGS (1.54 kg) intermediate. Pigs fed the corn-soy diet had better (0.488; P<0.05) G:F than pigs fed the DDGS diet (0.460), with pigs fed Feed Aid (0.482) and Defusion (0.478) intermediate. Overall, pigs fed the corn-soy diet had greater (P<0.05) ADG when compared to the other dietary treatments with no evidence of differences in ADFI or G:F. There was no evidence that Defusion or Feed Aid influenced overall performance. In conclusion, feeding 40% DDGS reduced ADG. Overall there was no evidence Feed Aid or Defusion improved growth performance of finishing pigs when the dietary DON concentration was less than 1 ppm.

Item	Corn-Soy	40% DDGS	Defusion	Feed Aid	SEM
d 0 to 112
ADG, kg	0.82a	0.78b	0.79b	0.79b	0.006
ADFI, kg	2.11	2.07	2.08	2.04	0.027
G:F	0.387	0.379	0.381	0.388	0.004
abMeans within a row with different superscripts differ P < 0.05.