The knowledge of the pig apatite for the different feed ingredients should allow for improving selection of ingredients that may encourage feed intake at weaning and contribute to prevent problems associated with weaning. Therfore, this study used a double choice feeding protocol to quantify the preference of pigs for sorghum, maize, rye and lupine, at different levels of inclusion, relative to a standard reference diet. It could be anticipated that differences in palatability between these ingredients exist as a result of their different contents in fibre, tannin or alkaloids. Additionally the effect of a previous experience feeding pigs dry feed was also evaluated by conducting these measurements in both newly-weaned and post-weaned pigs. The results show that broken rice has a higher acceptability in pigs, than sorghum, maize or rye. As sorghum, maize and rye were tested against the same reference diet, an indirect comparison of these three feedstuffs was possible. In that case it appears that at 250 g kg−1 of inclusion maize has the highest palatability (35%), sorghum and rye being similar (29%), and that at 500 g kg−1 of inclusion rye has a higher palatability (49%) followed by maize (28%) and sorghum (21%). The lower palatability in sorghum may be explained in part by its relatively high content in bitter-tasting tannins (Mariscal-Landin et al., 2004). The comparisons using pure ingredient preparations, on the other hand, resulted in similar values for all three cereals relative to rice (overall period preferences ranging between 16 and 19%). It is concluded that Feedstuff palatability can be quantified with a double choice protocol using a reference diet. This will allow taking into account palatability aspects of feed ingredients, as well as nutritional value, when formulating diets for young pigs. This may become a useful tool to improve piglets feed initiation at weaning.

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