The Energy Content of Diets Containing Lactobacillus-Fermented Barley or Wheat for Weaned Pigs

This study was conducted to determine the energy contents in diets containing Lactobacillus-fermented barley or wheat fed to weaned pigs. Thirty-six weaned pigs (8.14 ± 0.65 kg) were randomly assigned to one of six experimental diets in a complete randomized design to give six replicates per diet. Pigs were individually housed in metabolism crates to determine DE and ME contents. The NE was also calculated from the average of two equations (Noblet et al., 1994), where 1) 0.700 × DE + 1.61 × ether extracts + 0.48 × starch – 0.91 × CP – 0.87 × ADF and 2) 0.726 × ME + 1.33 × ether extract + 0.39 × starch – 0.62 × CP – 0.83 × ADF. Pigs were fed experimental diets at 2.5 times the maintenance energy requirement for 10 d of adaptation and 5 d of total but separate urinal and fecal collection. Samples of barley or wheat were fermented for 90-d under anaerobic conditions with an inoculum of either homofermentative Lactobacillus (Homo; L. plantarum) or heterofermentative Lactobacillus (Hetero; L. buchneri). Three diets were formulated based on either barley or wheat to consist of a control diet containing 42% unfermented cereal and two diets containing either Homo-fermented or Hetero-fermented grain. Preplanned contrasts were used to evaluate the effects of inclusion of fermented barley or wheat and to compare the effects of Homo-fermented grains with those of Hetero-fermented grains. Fermented barley diets had lower (P < 0.05) DE than unfermented barley diets but comparable ME and NE contents. Although DE and ME of fermented wheat diets did not differ from those of unfermented wheat diets, pigs fed fermented wheat diets showed greater (P < 0.05) apparent total tract digestibility of GE and a tendency for greater (P < 0.10) energy retention. A trend (P < 0.10) for greater NE content was observed in fermented wheat diets compared to unfermented wheat diets. When the energy contents of experimental diets were converted to a DM basis, greater (P < 0.05) DE, ME, and NE contents were observed for fermented wheat diets compared to unfermented wheat diets. There were no differences in energy contents of fermented diets irrespective of inoculum. In conclusion, the energy content of wheat-based nursery diets can be beneficially enhanced by replacing unfermented wheat with wheat fermented with Lactobacillus, irrespective of whether inoculum is L. buchneri or L. plantarum.