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Prairie Swine Centre is an affiliate of the University of Saskatchewan
Prairie Swine Centre is grateful for the assistance of the George Morris Centre in developing the economics portion of Pork Insight.
Financial support for the Enterprise Model Project and Pork Insight has been provided by:
Feeding lower than typical nutrient dense diets based on barley or wheat grain to weaned pigs – X. Zhou, Eduardo Beltranena, Lifang Wang and Ruurd T.Zijlstra 2017
Posted in: Nutrition, Pork Insight Articles by admin on May 2, 2017
Weaned pigs fed barley-based diets grew 41 (g/day) faster and converted feed into gain six per cent more efficiently than those fed wheat-based diets. Diet nutrient density had no effect on growth performance, but lower than typical nutrient density reduced feed cost and cost per kilogram of gain. Producers could therefore consider lower nutrient density and including more barley in nursery diets as long as pigs are able to maintain feed intake.
Formulating diets with low nutrient density reduced feed cost $42.74 and $45.63 per tonne of
wheat or barley-based diet, respectively, and slightly reduced feed cost per kg of body weight gain.
Researchers concluded that barley fiber likely has a prebiotic effect in the intestine favoring microbes that promote gut development and health.