Abstract Feed mills often operate near or at manufacturing capacity, and, on occasion, do not have the flexibility to manufacture diets in pellet form. Literature has often shown improved ADG, G:F, and reduced feed wastage for pelleted compared to meal diets. The objectives of this study were to determine the impacts of dietary feed form and switching between feed forms on grow-finish pig growth performance and carcass characteristics. A total of 1,216 mixed-sex pigs (initial BW 28.1 ± 2.45 kg) were used in a randomized complete block design (16 pens/treatment with 19 pigs/pen) evaluating four dietary treatments over 112 d: 1) Pellet throughout (PELL), 2) Pellet early followed by meal late (P-M), 3) Meal early followed by pellet late (M-P), and 4) Meal throughout (MEAL). A 6-phase dietary program was used and based on dietary budgets. Treatment 2 and 3, transitioned from Pellet to Meal or Meal to Pellet when pigs switched from phase 3 to 4 diets. Data were analyzed using the Mixed procedures of SAS. PELL increased (P 0.05) final body weight 4.0 kg, increased (P 0.05) overall ADG 3.88%, and improved (P 0.05) overall G:F 5.60% compared to MEAL. Growth performance for M-P was similar to PELL while the P-M was similar to MEAL. Overall G:F was improved (P 0.05) if pellets during any phases were fed compared to MEAL. Hot carcass weight was greater (P 0.05) for PELL compared to MEAL (2.6 kg), with P-M and M-P falling intermediate to these treatments, but carcass yield did not differ (P 0.05) between treatments. These results confirm previously observed benefits to feeding pelleted diets to pigs and suggest that feed form in late finishing when pigs are least efficient may be of greater importance versus feed form in the grower phase. Furthermore, if feed mills cannot maintain throughput while manufacturing pelleted diets and must switch to meal diets in late-finishing there will be a reduction in overall growth performance.
McCormick et al. (Wed,) studied this question.
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