Effects of adding super dose phytase to the phosphorus-deficient diets of young pigs on growth performance, bone quality, minerals and amino acids digestibilities

Two experiments were conducted to evaluate the efficacy of feeding an Escherichia coli (E. coli) derived phytase to pigs fed P deficient, corn-soybean meal diets. In Exp. 1, one hundred and twenty crossbred piglets (9.53±0.84 kg) were allocated to one of five treatments which consisted of four low P diets (0.61% Ca, 0.46% total P and 0.24% non-phytate P) supplemented with 0, 500, 1,000, or 20,000 FTU/kg E. coli phytase as well as a positive control formulated to be adequate in all nutrients (0.77% Ca, 0.62% total P and 0.42% non-phytate P). The treatments were applied to six pens with four pigs per pen for 28 days. In Exp. 2, ten crossbred pigs (19.66±1.16 kg) fitted with ileal T-cannula were used in a nutrient balance study. The pigs were assigned to treatments similar to those used in Exp. 1 in a doubly replicated 5×4 incomplete Latin square design (5 diets with 4 periods). Each period consisted of a 5-d adjustment period followed by a 3-d total collection of feces and urine and then a 2-d collection of ileal digesta. Supplementation with phytase linearly increased (p<0.05) weight gain, feed intake, feed efficiency, bone breaking strength and fat-free dry and ash bone weight. There were linear increases (p<0.01) in the apparent ileal digestibility (AID) of DM, GE, CP, Ca, total P, inositol hexaphosphate (IP ₆) and some AA with increasing dose of E. coli phytase. Pigs fed 20,000 FTU/kg had a greater (p<0.05) AID of IP₆ (80% vs 59% or 64%, respectively) than pigs fed diets with 500 or 1,000 FTU/kg phytase. There were linear increases (p<0.05) in the total tract digestibility of Ca, total P, Na, K, Mg, and Zn as well as in the retention of Mg and Zn with increased phytase dose. The retention and utilization of Cu, and the total tract digestibility of CP and Cu quadratic increased (p<0.05) with increased phytase dose. In conclusion, supplementation of 500 FTU of phytase/kg and above effectively hydrolyzed phytate in low-P corn-soybean diets for pigs. In addition, a super dose of phytase (20,000 FTU/kg) hydrolyzed most of the IP6 and consequently further improved mineral use, protein utilization and performance.