Effect of Crude Fibre Levels and Sources on Nutrient Utilization and Growth Performance of Pigs

Abstract

The study was conducted to find the effect of high fibre diets containing silages of maize (MS) and vegetable waste (VS) on the performance of growing-finishing pigs. Twenty-four castrated male piglets (Hampshire X Ghungroo; about 48 days old, 8.88 ± 0.15 kg BW) were randomly allotted into three groups as normal fibre basal diet (NF-BD), high fibre maize silage (HF-MS) and high fibre vegetable waste silage (HF-VS) comprising eight animals in each; where pigs in NF-BD group were fed basal diet for grower (BDG) & basal diet for finisher (BDF), HF-MS group were fed maize silage diet for grower (MSG) & maize silage diet for finisher (MSF) and HF-VS group were fed vegetable waste silage diet for grower (VSG) & vegetable waste silage diet for finisher (VSF), respectively for growing and finishing phases. The basal diets BDG (6.28% CF) and BDF (8.43% CF) were prepared without silages; whereas MSG (8.17% CF) and MSF (10.31% CF) diets contained MS and VSG (8.03% CF) and VSF (10.0% CF) diets contained VS as additional fibre sources to increase CF level. Feeding high fibre diets (8-10% CF) containing silages to growing-finishing pigs had no significant effect on daily intake and digestibility of nutrients (P>0.05), however higher CF level has significantly reduced the CP intake (P<0.05) per kg W^0.75 during the growing period. The N-balance of experimental pigs was comparable (P>0.05) across the groups except for the excretion of faecal N and urinary N in HF-MS and HF-VS groups, respectively during the finisher phase. The net gain and ADG were significantly higher (P<0.05) in basal and VS diet-fed groups. The FCR values differed significantly (P<0.001) across the treatment groups, where HF-MS showed higher values followed by HF-VS and NF-BD groups. The cost (Rs/kg weight gain) was significantly lower in the NF-BD and HF-VS groups than in the HF-MS group. From the study, it is concluded that vegetable waste silage-based diet with 8-10% CF level performs better than the maize silage-based diet at a similar CF level and is at par with a low fibre basal diet (6-8% CF) in overall production performance of crossbred pigs.