Effects of Diet Complexity and Processing Method on Growth Performance and Nutrient Digestibility in Nursery Pigs

Kansas State University Swine Research. A complex diet formulation resulted in greater digestibility of nutrients and a trend for greater ADG for d 0 to 14 of the experiment. However, for d 14 to 28 and overall (d 0 to 28), diet complexity did not affect growth performance. In contrast, pelleting improved essentially every response criterion especially in simple diets. Expander conditioning before pelleting increased overall digestibility of nutrients and of F/G compared to standard conditioning, but again, the response was most pronounced with the simple diet formulations.