Reduction in feed intake is a common physiological response of growing pigs facing stressful environmental conditions. The present experiment aims to study (1) the effects of a short-term feed restriction and refeeding on pig performance and metabolism and (2) the differential response between two breeds, Large White (LW), which has been selected for high performance, and Creole (CR), which is adapted to tropical conditions. A trial of 36 castrated male pigs (18 LW and 18 CR) was carried out. For each breed, half of the animals were restrictively fed at 50% of the standard feed allowance for 6 days and then fed normally for the next 14 days. Growth performance, thermoregulatory responses, plasma hormones and metabolites were measured. Results showed that, for all traits, the difference in response between the two breeds was small and rarely significant, which may be due to the short duration of the feed restriction. Irrespective of breed, feed restriction induced a reduction of growth rate and feed efficiency that was rapidly compensated for upon refeeding. Feed restriction also reduced skin temperature, rectal temperature and respiratory rate, as well as blood urea and cholesterol, which are of interest as potential biomarkers for feed restriction.
A total of 24 castrated male Creole were used for digestibility studies on three sugarcane (SC) products: final molasses, SC juice and ground SC. Digestibility of macronutrients were determined in three consecutive experimental trials between 35 and 60 kg BW. The first trial measured the effect of a constant rate of incorporation of those SC products in a control diet (23% on a dry matter (DM) basis) on digestibility of energy and nutrients. The second and the third trials were designed to determine the effects of increasing rates of inclusion of SC juice and ground SC in the control diet on the digestibility of nutrients and energy. The DM content of molasses, SC juice and ground SC were 74.3%, 19.3% and 25.8%, respectively. Free sugar contents were 73.8%, 81.6% and 51.5% of DM for molasses, SC juice and ground SC, respectively. In contrast with molasses and SC juice, NDF content of ground SC was very high (40.3% DM). Energy digestibility coefficients (DC) were 99.0% and 83.6% for SC juice and molasses, respectively. For ground SC, amounts and composition of intakes differed from feed allowance as a consequence of chewing-then-spitting out most of the fibrous contents of ground SC. Expressed as a percentage of energy intake and energy allowance, DC of energy for ground SC were 68.6% and 31.9%, respectively. On an intake basis, digestible energy (DE) and metabolisable energy (ME) values were higher for SC juice (17.3 and 17.2 MJ/kg DM, respectively) than for molasses (13.1 and 12.6 MJ/kg DM, respectively) or ground SC (12.3 and 11.8 MJ/kg DM, respectively). On an allowance basis, the corresponding values for ground SC were only 5.7 and 5.6 MJ/kg DM, respectively. The gradual inclusion rate of SC juice in the diet up to 66% resulted in a linear increase of the DC of the diet organic matter and energy (P , 0.001) by 0.10% per 1% in SC juice DM. On the other hand, the partial substitution of the control diet by ground SC up to 74% resulted in a linear (P , 0.05) reduction of digestibility of nutrients and energy. Each 1% increase of ground SC incorporation rate resulted in a 0.13% and 0.61% linear decrease of DC of the energy, expressed as a percentage of energy intake or energy allowance, respectively. In conclusion, our study provides updated energy values of SC products usable as energy sources for feeding pigs.
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