Whole‐body amino acid composition of the growing pig

The whole‐body amino acid composition of 20 Landrace × Large White entire male pigs was determined with equal numbers of pigs at 20 and 45 kg liveweight. Except for aspartic acid and alanine, amino acid levels (g/16 g N) were not statistically significantly different at the two liveweights. Overall mean whole‐body essential amino acid levels were: lysine = 5.94; methionine = 1.85; cystine = 1.28; tryptophan = 0.68; histidine = 3.49; phenylalanine = 3.86; tyrosine = 2.79; threonine = 3.83; leucine = 7.54; isoleucine = 2.84; and valine = 4.06 g/16 g N. There was general agreement between a pattern of essential amino acids based on these and other published results for pig whole‐body composition and recently published empirical estimates of the ideal amino acid balance for growth in the pig.