The objective of the current experiment was to evaluate the influence of dietary cereal sources of β(1,3)(1,4)-d-glucan (β-glucan) and enzyme supplementation on indices of environmental pollution from finisher pigs. An experiment with a 2 × 2 factorial arrangement of treatments was initiated to investigate the effect of dietary source of β-glucan (barley vs. oats) and enzyme supplementation (no vs. yes) on nutrient digestibility, N utilization, intestinal fermentation, and manure odor and ammonia emissions from finisher boars (n = 4; BW = 73.9 kg; SD = 4.7). Sixteen boars were assigned to 1 of 4 dietary treatments (n = 4/treatment): 1) barley-based diet, 2) barleybased diet + exogenous enzyme, 3) oat-based diet, and 4) oat-based diet + enzyme. The enzyme supplement used contained endo-1,3(4)-β-glucanase and endo-1,4- β-xylanase. Experimental diets were formulated to contain similar concentrations of DE (13.5 MJ/kg) and digestible lysine (8.8 g/kg). Pigs offered oat-based diets had reduced digestibility of DM (0.795 vs. 0.849), OM (0.808 vs. 0.865), GE (0.806 vs. 0.845), and NDF (0.233 vs. 0.423) compared with those offered barley-based diets. Oat-based diets increased populations of Bifidobacterium spp. (7.26 vs. 6.38 log cfu/g of digesta) and Lactobacillus spp. (6.99 vs. 6.18 log cfu/g of digesta) in the proximal colon and decreased manure odor emissions [2,179.6 vs. 4,984.6 OuE/m3 (where OuE refers to European odor units)] compared with barleybased diets. There was an interaction between cereal type and enzyme inclusion on manure ammonia emissions from 0 to 96 h. Pigs offered barley- based diets containing an enzyme supplement had increased manure ammonia emissions compared with those offered unsupplemented barley-based diets. However, there was no effect of enzyme inclusion on oatbased diets. In conclusion, pigs offered oat-based diets harbored increased Bifidobacterium spp. and Lactobacillus spp. populations in the proximal colon and had decreased manure odor emissions compared with those offered barley-based diets. Enzyme inclusion had no effect on manure ammonia emissions from pigs offered oat-based diets.
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