Performance and carcass characteristics of growing pigs and broilers fed diets containing micronised barley, ground barley, wheat and maize

Y. L. Yin, Samuel K Baidoo, J. L.L. Boychuk, H. H. Simmins

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

24 Scopus citations

Abstract

Two swine starter/grower/finisher trials utilising 216 24-day-old pigs and one 40-day broiler growth trial utilising 1920 1-day-old chicks were conducted to determine the influence of dietary micronised dehulled barley (MDB) as a replacement for hulled barley (HB), wheat (W) and maize (M) on live performance, carcass and meat measurements, organ weights (swine), plasma urea nitrogen (PUN) level (swine) and intestinal digesta viscosity (broilers). Dehulling and micronising the barley reduced crude protein by 20%, neutral detergent fibre by 17% and amino acids by varying amounts. Replacing M or W with MDB in swine diets had no effect (P > 0.05) on any measured parameter, with the exception of decreased PUN (P = 0.03) when MDB replaced 100% of W. Broilers fed W, M or HB generally had similar live performances, carcass traits and digesta viscosity, with the exception of reduced (P < 0.05) average daily gain and average daily feed intake for HB during the first 20 days of the trial. However, broilers fed MDB had slightly reduced (P = 0.05) live performance during each phase of the trial and greatly increased (P = 0.01) digesta viscosity. Addition of a commercial enzyme product to the diets reversed the reduced performance and increased the digesta viscosity of the MDB diet, but generally had no influence in the W, M and HB diets. These results suggest that MDB can be utilised in swine diets without affecting performance, but that reduced performance may result from its use in broiler diets.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)1487-1497
Number of pages11
JournalJournal of the Science of Food and Agriculture
Volume81
Issue number15
DOIs
StatePublished - 2001

Keywords

  • Broilers
  • Dehulled barley
  • Food enzymes
  • Grains
  • Micronisation
  • Pigs

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Performance and carcass characteristics of growing pigs and broilers fed diets containing micronised barley, ground barley, wheat and maize'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this