2Two experiments were conducted to examine the effect of liquid to feed ratio, steeping time 3 and enzyme supplementation on performance of weaner pigs. In Expt. 1, 40 male weaner 4 pigs (weaned at 27 days of age) were randomly allocated to four treatments, including a dry 5 fed control and three liquid diets of differing liquid: feed ratios (2:1, 3:1 and 4:1). Pigs were 6 fed individually. Body weight was measured weekly and feed intake measured daily. The 7 results confirmed the advantage of liquid feeding but indicated that liquid: feed ratio had very 8 little effect on performance of weaner pigs. While the digestible energy (DE) content of the 9 2:1, 3:1 diets was similar to the control diet, the DE content of the 4:1 diet was significantly 10 lower, possibly due to the removal of the insoluble marker (long chain hydrocarbon) by the 11 amount of water in the diet. 12 In Expt. 2, the effect of a xylanase and steeping time on pig performance was assessed in 13 a 2 × 2 factorial design (two steeping times, 1 h v. 15 h; enzyme addition, + v. -). Sixty male 14 weaner pigs (weaned at 27 days of age) were randomly allocated to four treatments and fed 15 individually for three weeks. Body weight was measured weekly and feed intake measured 16 daily. The experiment revealed that both steeping and enzyme addition increased feed intake 17 (P<0.01) and growth rate (P<0.05), suggesting that both techniques influence the non-starch 18 polysaccharide composition of the wheat based diet. Feed conversion ratio (FCR) tended to 19 be improved more by steeping than by enzyme addition (P=0.06). The results would suggest 20 that steeping improves FCR by allowing increased hydration of feed and subsequent 21 activation of the endogenous enzymes present naturally in grains. 23The present study was designed to test the hypothesis that the water : solid feed ratio would 24 affect nutrient availability to weaner pigs fed liquid diets. 26Additional keywords: Liquid feeding, growth rate, digestible energy, feed conversion ratio 27 1

Currently, most feed grains are processed by either hammer mill or roller mill before the inclusion in pig diets. However, the effect of these two types of milling and particle size on the performance and feed utilisation has not been adequately examined. The effect of milling processing (hammer mill v. roller mill), particle size, and feeding method (liquid v. dry) was assessed in a factorial design with 120 weaner pigs over 21 days. These pigs had been weaned for 7 days when the experiment commenced. The results revealed that pigs fed on hammer-milled diets had a better performance than those on roller-milled diets. Particle size of hammer-milled diets did not affect the performance of pigs, but influenced the digestible energy content of the diets. However, the feed conversion ratio was poorer for pigs fed coarsely or medium roller-milled diets only at Day 7–14 after weaning. There was a marked advantage in terms of feed efficiency associated with liquid feeding. For pigs offered the hammer-milled diets between 0 and 14 days, simply adding the feed to water improved feed efficiency by some 22%. For the roller-milled diets the corresponding improvement in feed efficiency was 28%. Liquid feeding improved digestible energy (DE) value by 1.5 MJ/kg for medium particle size and depressed DE value by 0.8 MJ/kg for fine particle size for hammer mill. Liquid feeding improved DE values for both medium and fine particle treatments by 0.9 MJ/kg for roller-milled diets. It should be noted that the full advantages of liquid feeding could only be taken if feed wastage from this system can be minimised as much as possible.The study was conducted to investigate if processing method (roller v. hammer mill), particle size (coarse, medium, and fine), and feeding method (liquid v. dry) significantly improved the growth rate, feed intake, and feed conversion of the weaner pig.