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A total of forty-eight young male piglets weaned at 21 days of age and an average BW of 6kg were used. Young animals were used, because their small intestine is more sensitive to mucus-stimulating antinutritional factors. Piglets were surgically fitted with a simple T-cannula at the terminal ileum and therefore individually housed in metabolic crates. Pigs were allocated randomly to either casein-cornstarch-sugar diet (control) or 1 of 6 test diets according to a randomized design. Test diets were casein -based plus: 100 g/kg of canola meal, 100 g/kg of wheat bran, 150 g/kg of barley, 22.5 g/kg of lignin, 15g/kg of kidney beans and 15 g/kg of tannins. The experimental diets were fed for 7d, followed by total urine and faces collection and ileal digesta was also collected for AA analysis.
Pigs fed barley had a 17% lower ADG and 15% lower feed conversion ratio (P<0.05) compared with control and canola meal. Piglets fed diets containing wheat bran and barley had lower nitrogen retention as a percentage of absorbed nitrogen compared with the other groups (P<0.03). The ileal digestibility of crude protein was lower in barley, wheat bran and kidney beans and tannins (P<0.05). The standardized ileal diegestibility was lower in wheat bran and barley for most indispensable amino acids.
It is concluded that cereal hemicellulose fibre at concentrations typically used in commercial swine diets, reduces apparent ileal digestibility of amino acids by increasing endogenous losses.
SB Myrie, RF Bertolo, WC Sauer and RO Ball (2008), Journal of Animal Science, 86: 609-619.
