Blend feeding or feeding a single diet has no impact on growth performance or carcase value
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
11-11-2015
Journal Title
Animal Production Science
ISSN
Print: 1836-0939 Electronic: 1836-5787
Keywords
pigs, swine, pork, blend feeding, single diet, nutrition
Disciplines
Meat Science | Other Animal Sciences
Abstract
Blend-feeding, where two extreme diets are mixed together in varying ratios (allowing the diet to be changed weekly), or feeding the same diet through the grower-finisher period (single), are alternatives to phase-feeding where three or four diets are fed during the grower-finisher period. Blend feeding or feeding a single diet have been found to have no effect on overall growth performance compared to a three-phase feeding program (Edwards 2011; Moore et al. 2013). However, there is some concern that the lysine level in the single diet used in these studies was not sufficient and as a result the true effect of feeding the single diet was not realised (Edwards 2011). The lysine requirements of Australian grower-finisher pigs have recently been reported to be approximately 10% higher than that used in these studies (Moore et al. 2015). Therefore blend feeding and feeding a single diet throughout the grower and finisher phases were re-examined using the higher lysine requirements. The hypothesis tested was that blend feeding or feeding a single diet will reduce the cost of feeding pigs compared to the phase-feeding system by minimising the excess of nutrients in the diets without adversely affecting pig growth performance and carcase quality.
Recommended Citation
Moore, K L,
Kim, J C,
and
Mullan, B P.
(2015), Blend feeding or feeding a single diet has no impact on growth performance or carcase value. Animal Production Science, 55 (12), 1572-1572.
https://library.dpird.wa.gov.au/ap_researchart/36
