The impact of daily multiphase feeding on animal performance, body composition, nitrogen and phosphorus excretions, and feed costs in growing–finishing pigs

Abstract

The effect of feeding pigs in a three-phase feeding (3PF) system or a daily-phase feeding (DPF) system on growth performance, body composition, and N and P excretions was studied on 8 pens of 10 pigs each. Feeds for the 3PF and DPF treatments were obtained by mixing two feeds, one with a high nutrient concentration and the other with a low nutrient concentration. The DPF pigs tended (P = 0.08) to consume more feed (+3.7%) than the 3PF pigs, but only during the first feeding phase. The DPF pigs consumed 7.3% less protein (P < 0.01) but a similar amount of total P. For the whole growing period, the DPF pigs tended (P = 0.08) to gain more weight (+2.4%) than the 3PF pigs, mainly because of faster growth (P = 0.02) during the first feeding period. At the end of the experiment, total body protein mass was similar in the two treatment groups, but the DPF pigs had 8% more body lipids (P = 0.04) than the 3PF pigs. Daily multiphase feeding reduced N excretion by 12% (P < 0.01) but did not significantly reduce P excretion. In addition, feed costs, nutrient intake and nutrient excretion under the two feeding strategies were simulated and compared after different approaches were used to formulate complete feeds for each phase of the 3PF system, as well as the two feeds used in the DPF program. Simulated feed intake and growth was similar to those observed in the animal experiment. In comparison with the simulated 3PF system, the feed cost for the DPF pigs was reduced by 1.0%, the simulated N and P intakes were reduced by 7.3% and 4.4%, respectively, and the expected N and P excretions were reduced by 12.6% and 6.6%, respectively. The concomitant adjustment of the dietary concentration of nutrients to match the evaluated requirements of pig populations can be an efficient approach to significantly reduce feeding costs and N and P excretions in pig production systems.

Impact of amino acid and CP restriction from 20 to 140 kg BW on performance and dynamics in empty body protein and lipid deposition of entire male, castrated and female pigs

“…Similar efficiencies were observed by other researchers in multi-phase feeding experiments testing low dietary protein diets (Bourdon et al, 1995;Pomar et al, 2014). The values for N efficiency in our experiment were greater than those reported from a Swiss survey on 887 Swiss pig-fattening farms (Bracher A. and Spring P., personal communication), where estimated values ranged from 30% to 35%.…”

Precision feeding can significantly reduce lysine intake and nitrogen excretion without compromising the performance of growing pigs

“…No effects of daily-phase feeding on bone mineralization or phosphorus retention were observed in previous studies (Andretta et al, 2014;Pomar et al, 2014a). However, lower daily intake of digestible phosphorus was observed in the current project than the previously reported studies as a result of the lower mineral supply of feed B.…”

“…Increasing the number of feeding phases was described previously as an effective technique to better adjust the dietary nutrient concentrations to the estimated requirements for pig populations (Bourdon et al, 1995;Pomar et al, 2014a) or individual animals (Andretta et al, 2014) without Andretta, Pomar, Rivest, Pomar and Radünz compromising on animal performance. The current performance results are also consistent with those obtained earlier through in silico simulation .…”

“…The economic and environmental advantages of this method were demonstrated previously (Bourdon et al, 1995;Pomar et al, 2014a). In addition to this adjustment over time, it is important to take into account the variability among individuals within a given population.…”

“…The results of previous evaluations of precision feeding are very promising 2014a;Andretta et al, 2014) and only a few trials have been conducted to assess the use of this new approach. The current study was therefore performed to evaluate, in terms of pig performance, nutrient balance, serum parameters and feeding costs during the growing-finishing period, the impact of switching from conventional feeding to precision-feeding (multi-phase) systems in which pigs were fed individually with daily tailored diets.…”