Influence of dietary nitrogen content and source to improve growth performance and lean gain in finisher pigs

Daniel Columbus- Previous trials done in grower pigs have shown that it is possible to replace some dietary protein or amino acids (AA) with a source of non-protein nitrogen (NPN) such as ammonium phosphate, while maintaining growth performance. However, the impact of dietary nitrogen (N) content and source on finisher pigs is not known.

In a trial, finisher pigs were assigned to diets either deficient in N, or a diet with sufficient N achieved by supplementing intact protein, or a diet with sufficient N achieved by supplementing with ammonium phosphate. Each diet contained either a standard amount of Lysine based on the requirement as indicated by NRC (2012) or Lysine at 120% of the requirement. This created six different dietary treatments.

The results suggested that the ratio of N coming from essential AA to the total N (the E:T ratio) did not have a significant impact on growth performance of finisher pigs. Dietary lysine had limited effect on growth performance, only having a positive effect in pigs fed diets with added ammonium phosphate. The results of this study showed that there is no economic advantage to providing additional nitrogen or lysine in diets for finisher pigs as formulated in the completed experiment.

Influence of dietary nitrogen content and source to improve growth performance and lean gain in finisher pigs (full article)