Evaluation of high-protein distillers dried grains on growth performance and carcass characteristics of growing-finishing pigs

Abstract

A total of 1,890 growing-finishing pigs (PIC; 359 × 1050; initially 27.1 kg) were used in a 124-d growth trial to compare the effects of high-protein distillers dried grains [HPDDG; 39% crude protein (CP)] or conventional distillers dried grains with solubles (DDGS; 29% CP) on growth performance and carcass characteristics. Treatments were arranged in a 2×2 + 1 factorial with main effects of distillers dried grains source (conventional DDGS or HPDDG) and level (15 or 30%). A corn-soybean meal-based diet served as the control and allowed linear and quadratic level effects to be determined within each distillers dried grains (DDG) source. All diets were formulated on an equal standardized ileal digestible (SID) Lys-basis with diets containing HPDDG having less soybean meal than diets with conventional DDGS. Pens were assigned to treatments in a randomized complete block design with initial weight as the blocking factor. There were 27 pigs per pen and 14 pens per treatment. Overall, increasing conventional DDGS decreased (linear, P < 0.04) final body weight (BW), whereas increasing HPDDG tended to decrease (linear, P = 0.065) final BW. The decreased final BW was a result of decreased (linear, P < 0.01) ADG in the grower phase of the study as either DDG source increased. However, there were no differences observed in the finisher phase or overall ADG between pigs fed either DDG source or either inclusion level. Pigs fed HPDDG had decreased (P < 0.001) ADFI and increased (P < 0.001) G:F compared with those fed conventional DDGS. For carcass traits, increasing either conventional DDGS or HPDDG decreased carcass yield and HCW (linear, P < 0.02); however, there were no differences between pigs fed HPDDG or conventional DDGS. Iodine value (IV) increased (linear, P < 0.02) with increasing DDG and was greater (P < 0.001) in pigs fed HPDDG than conventional DDGS. In summary, pigs fed HPDDG had no evidence of difference in overall ADG compared to pigs fed conventional DDGS, but had greater overall G:F. Carcass fat IV was also greater in pigs fed HPDDG compared with pigs fed conventional DDGS. These differences were probably due to the difference in oil content.

Replacement of dietary corn with corn bran plus condensed distillers solubles effects on feedlot growth performance and carcass trait responses of beef steers

“…New technology in the ethanol industry allows dry-corn milling biorefineries to fractionate corn fiber from fermentable corn constituent’s prefermentation resulting in greater ethanol yields for the facility ( Sekhon et al, 2015 ). Due to the earlier fractionation of corn fiber in this process, the subsequently produced dried distillers grains (DDG) are more concentrated and have a higher crude protein content that fits specific parameters for use as a feed in nursery, growing, and finishing diets of pigs as a potential cost-effective replacement for soybean meal ( Cemin et al, 2021 ; Rao et al, 2021 ). High-protein DDG have also been evaluated as a suitable feed in beef cattle feedlot diets ( Garland et al, 2019 ).…”