The Effect of Feeding a Low Nutrient Excretion Diet on Growth Performance and Carcass Characteristics of Nursery, Grower, and Finisher Pigs

Purdue University 2003 Swine Research Report. Todays swine industry has undergone many production changes over the past two decades. Production facilities have become more concentrated, not only in the number of pigs reared at one production operation, but also the number of production facilities located in the same geographical area. A negative aspect of this increased animal concentration is the increase in the amount of manure that is produced and the land that is required to apply manure at rates that environmentally sustainable. Many practices are currently being evaluated to reduce the amount of nutrients excreted in the urine and feces by the pig and directly impacting manure application rates and environmental air quality. Three such practices include: feeding diets with a reduced crude protein level and the supplementing with crystalline amino-acids, the inclusion of phytase in the diet, and the replacing of normal corn with high available phosphorus (HAP) corn. The purpose of this experiment was to combine these three feeding practices into the same low nutrient excretion (LNE) diet and measure its effect on growth performance and carcass characteristics during the nursery, grower, and finisher phases of production.