Effect of Dietary Fiber on Young Adult Genetically Lean, Obese and Contemporary Pigs: Body Weight, Carcass Measurements, Organ Weights and Digesta Content

Abstract

Twenty-one genetically lean, obese or contemporary barrows (6 mo old; seven of each genotype) were assigned to individual tether stalls and fed a control diet (low-fiber) or a diet containing 80% alfalfa meal (high-fiber) at 1.50% of initial body weight for 71 d (1.75% for d 1 to 4). Backfat thickness was recorded ultrasonically at 2-wk intervals, and body weight was recorded at the beginning and end of the 10-wk experiment. Pigs were slaughtered after a 24-h fast, and carcass weight, length and backfat thickness and cross-sectional area of the longissimus muscle were measured. Weights of cecum, heart, liver and kidney and of full and empty stomach and colon and empty small intestine were recorded. Volume and weight of colon and cecum contents were determined. Restriction of digestible energy reduced weight gain to zero or below in pigs fed alfalfa meal compared with 220 g daily in pigs fed the low-fiber diet. Restriction of energy reduced backfat in all three genotypes. Liver, kidney and empty segments of the gastrointestinal tract as a percentage of body weight were increased by high fiber. Obese pigs had smaller longissimus muscle area, more backfat and smaller liver, heart, empty stomach and colon than lean or contemporary pigs, but there were no diet X genotype interactions for any of these traits. Obese pigs consistently had smaller digesta volumes and dry matter weights than the other genotypes. The increased relative organ weights and the associated disproportionate contribution of these organs to body energy expenditure have important implications for effects on basal metabolic rate.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

Dietary fibre for gestating sows: effects on parturition progress, behaviour, litter and sow performance

“…The lack of impact on body weight could be explained by an increased weight of digestive tract in sows fed the HF diet during gestation. Such an impact on the digestive tract has been shown in growing pigs (Pond et al, 1988;Jørgensen et al, 1996).…”

Method of using increasing levels of substitution of the basal diet by test feedstuffs in pig digestibility trials

“…The digestibility coefficients (Table 3) for sticky coffee hulls were lower than those obtained by Poveda-Parra et al (2008) and Ferreira et al (1997) for DE (2,498 and 2,843 kcal/kg, respectively) and DCCP (45.7 and 65.5%, respectively). Similarly, the values found are lower than those observed by Oliveira et al (2002) and Ferreira et al (1997) for DDM (65.6 and 61.0%, respectively) and ME (2,684 and 2,694kcal/kg, respectively).…”

“…There may be decrease in dry matter digestibility result of the partial substitution of a highly digestible carbohydrate source (corn starch) by another less digestible source, rich in non-starch polysaccharides (NSP), with lower fermentation or through an increase in intestinal transit, leading to a reduction in the fermentation of structural carbohydrates (Gomes et al, 2007). The digestible coefficients (DC) and metabolizable coefficients (MC) of gross energy were not influenced (P>0.05) by the levels of substitution, but for Pond et al (1988) found a reduction in the digestibility of energy in diets with high fiber inclusion. According to Kempen (2001) for each 1% of fiber added to the diet of pigs, energy digestibility also falls by at least 1%.…”

“…For the digestibility assay, the sticky coffee hulls were ground into 4mm particle sizes, as a study by Poveda-Parra et al (2008) demonstrated that sticky coffee hulls ground into that size present a better digestibility coefficient than hulls ground in a 2.5mm screen sieve. The particle sizes of the tested feeds were 533, 606, 628 and 656, respectively, for levels 7, 14, 21 and 28% of hulls in the diets.…”

“…2). The level of SCH was set at 15%, as this level was indicated as best in previous study (Poveda-Parra et al, 2008). For diet formulation, the chemical and energy composition of SCH was used, obtained during the digestibility assay.…”