University of Florida North Florida Research and Education Center, 3925 Highway 71, Marianna, FL 32446, USA.
Department of Animal Sciences, Gainesville, FL 32611, USA.
2 Corresponding author: bmyer@ufl.edu.
1 Florida Agricultural Experiment Station Journal Series.
A study was conducted to evaluate post-weaning growth performance of weaned pigs when triticale grain replaced maize grain in diets fed during the nursery phase (3 to 8 wk of age). Four similar feeding trials were conducted: Trial 1 involved 90 pigs (6.7 kg); Trial 2, 84 pigs (7.0 kg); Trial 3, 150 pigs (6.5 kg) and Trial 4, 100 pigs (7.6 kg). The pigs were fed nutritionally adequate, iso-lysinic diets containing either maize or triticale as the grain source. The trials started immediately after weaning which occurred at 21 ± 2 d (Trials 1 through 3) or 24 ± 2 d (Trial 4) of age. A two-phase nursery feeding program was used: complex Phase I diets were fed from 0 to 12 d post-weaning and less complex Phase II diets from 12 to 35 d. The substitution of triticale for maize resulted in similar (P>0.10; Trials 1 and 4) or slightly better (P<0.10; Trials 2 and 3) average daily weight gain (ADG) over the 35 d nursery period. The improvement in ADG occurred during Phase II only. Feed-to-gain (F/G) was not affected (P>0.10) by dietary grain source in Trials 1 through 3, but in Trial 4, pigs fed the triticale diets averaged 8% poorer (P<0.01) F/G. These results indicate that triticale grain is a suitable feed grain for nursery diets for pigs weaned at three weeks.
Pigs, triticale, nursery pig diets
