Study reveals high-protein distiller’s dry grain boosts pig energy and digestibility
Brazil is a major producer of cereal ethanol coproducts for swine feed. However, the variability in the chemical composition of these coproducts and the lack of proper nutritional characterisation limits the use of these ingredients in swine feed. A team of Brazilian researchers delved into this and determined the values of the net, digestible and metabolisable energy and digestibility of high-protein distiller’s dry grain produced in Brazil.
In addition to determining energy and digestibility, the researchers evaluated effects on the nitrogen balance and blood parameters of pigs. They published about their findings in Animals.
About the study
The researchers used ten barrows for this trial, and randomly distributed them according to individual weight into 5 diet groups. They fed the control group a reference diet based on corn and soybean meal, and 4 other groups with a diet composed of 800 g/kg reference diet and 200 g/kg of each corn ethanol coproducts.
The coproducts included corn bran with soluble, high-protein dried distiller’s grains, dried distiller’s grains, and dried distiller’s grains with soluble. They performed 3 periods of feeding and total collection of faeces and urine. They analysed diets, coproducts, and faeces samples for dry matter, crude protein, ether extract, ash, neutral detergent insoluble fibre, total nitrogen, and gross energy. Then, the researchers evaluated the apparent total tract digestibility, digestible nutrient contents, digestible energy, and metabolisable energy. Then they calculated the consumption ratio of diets with ethanol corn coproducts to excretion of each component per animal. In addition, they collected blood samples to evaluate the levels of glucose, triglycerides and urea.
Digestible contents of corn ethanol coproducts
Diets containing the high-protein distiller’s dried grain had greater digestible energy and metabolisable energy compared to diets containing distiller’s dried grains with soluble, corn bran with soluble, and distiller’s dried grains. In addition, diets containing the high-protein distiller’s dried grain had higher values of digestible contents including neutral detergent insoluble fibre, crude protein, and ether extract compared to other diets. Furthermore, diets containing the high-protein distiller’s dried grain had greater impact on nitrogen balance and efficiency in pigs compared to other diets.
Impact of high-protein distiller’s dry grain on blood parameters
Pigs fed diets containing the high-protein distiller’s dried grain had higher blood urea levels than pigs fed corn bran with soluble and the control group. Pigs fed corn bran with soluble diet had greater blood triglyceride levels than those pigs that received other diets.
The authors concluded that among the Brazilian coproducts, diets containing the high-protein distiller’s dried grain had the highest energy levels and the best digestibility coefficients.
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