The effect of supplementation of liquid and crystalline lysine to barley-distillers solids diet on the performance and carcass quality of pigs

Authors

• Jarmo Valaja Agricultural Research Centre of Finland, Swine Research Station, SF-05840 Hyvinkää, Finland

DOI: https://doi.org/10.23986/afsci.72468

Abstract

The response to dietary lysine of liquid or crystalline form was examined in pigs fed on cereal protein dietsover the range of live weight from 25.0 to 95.0 kg. Forty individually fed growing pigs (20 gilts and 20castrated males) were allocated to four isonitrogenous diets consisting of barley, undehydrated distillers solids and a mixture of minerals and vitamins with lysine supplementation of 0.9 or 3.2 g pure lysine per kg DM in liquid or crystalline form to provide 7.1 or 9.1 g/FU total lysine, respectively. The pigs were given feed on a restricted scale twice daily. A high level of lysine supplementation significantly increased the growth rate and improved the feed conversion efficiency (p<0.001). A low level of lysine supplementation produced significantly less lean in carcass (p<0.05) and a smaller area of eye muscle (p<0.001). The loss at slaughter (in relation to live weight) of the pigs on high level of lysine supply was significantly lower than that of the pigs on low level of lysine supply (p<0.05). No significant differences were found in the performance and carcass quality of the pigs between liquid and crystalline form of lysine except that the area of eye muscle of the pigs on liquid lysine diets was larger than that of the pigs on crystalline lysine diets (p<0.05). No interaction was found between lysine source and level of supplementation on the performance or carcass quality. The results of this study showed that both sources of lysine supplementation were equally efficient in improving the performance of the pigs.