Two experiments were conducted to investigate the inclusion of high cut whole plant corn silage (HCCS) in diets for finishing heavy pigs on digestibility, metabolic utilisation, growth performance and slaughter traits. A control diet (CTR, containing maize meal, barley meal, extracted soybean meal and wheat bran, 550, 250, 90 and 80 g/kg DM, respectively) was compared with diet (CS) containing 200 g/kg DM of HCCS. The HCCS replaced wheat bran and part of maize meal in the CTR diet. In the first experiment, eight barrows were used in a two periods cross over design with periods of 21 d, included 7 d of total collection and three cycles of 24 h each in a respiratory chamber. In the second experiment, 28 barrows were divided into pairs on the basis of BW, kept in 14 pens and fed with the experimental diets until slaughter. Lower DM, OM, CP and energy total tract apparent digestibility was measured for the CS diet. Overall P retention as percentage of P intake was higher for CS diet, while N retention was similar for the two diets. Pigs fed CS tended to have a lower retained energy and the estimated NE of maize silage was 8.47 MJ/kg DM. Pigs fed the CS diets had a lower daily gain, a lower BW at slaughter and a reduction in the weight of back fat. The inclusion of HCCS increased the size of the stomach, the aNDFom concentration of stomach content and reduced the incidence of follicular gastritis.
ARTICLE HISTORY
The effect of diets containing corn silages (whole ear or high cut whole plant corn silages, WECS and HCCS, respectively) on fatty acid composition of back fat and the weight loss of thighs during the seasoning process were examined in Italian heavy pigs (from 90 to 160 kg of live weight). Two trials were conducted in the same farm, following an identical experimental protocol. In both trials, a control diet, based on dry corn, barley, wheat, extracted soybean meal, wheat bran and supplement (47, 23, 10, 9, 8 and 3% dry matter (DM), respectively) was compared with a diet containing 30% DM of WECS (trial 1) or 20% DM of HCCS (trial 2) in substitution of bran and part of the corn. The initial fresh weight of thighs was very homogeneous between the two trials and only at the end of seasoning the hams from pigs fed the corn silage diets were slightly lighter (of about 0.5 kg, p < .05). The dietary inclusion of corn silages determined a significant increase of the saturated fraction of the back fat (from 40.6 to 41.9%, p < .05), mainly due to the increase of the C 18:0 fatty acid (from 14.3 to 15.2%, p < .05). Overall, the calculated iodine value was favourable for the fat of pigs fed silages (62.63 vs. 64.24, p ¼ .05). In conclusion, feeding corn silages to heavy pigs has limited impact on seasoning ham losses and can slightly improve backfat quality, in terms of fatty acid composition.
The aim of this paper was to determine the topographic distribution of gastritis lesions in pigs through an open source geographic information system (GIS) software analysis. The stomachs of 146 Italian heavy pigs were collected at slaughter and subjected to macroscopic pathological examination of the internal mucosa. A total of 623 lesions were either classified as hyperplastic or follicular (97%) with the remaining minority of lesions categorised as atrophic and simple. The hyperplastic gastritis lesions had an average surface of 77.8 cm2 and were mainly located in an oval shaped area of the fundus region of the stomach near the Curvatura ventriculi major. The follicular gastritis lesions had generally a smaller surface (40.3 cm2) and were concentrated in two distinct small areas of the pyloric region. The GIS analysis provided the opportunity to produce useful maps showing the distribution and characteristics of gastritis in pigs.
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