Morphometric characteristics of finishing pigs fed cottonseed meal

Abstract

The objective of this study was to evaluate the morphometric characteristics of finishing pigs fed cottonseed meal and enzymes. Thirty castrated male pigs with an average weight of 55.47 ± 5.3 kg were used in an experiment in a randomized block design, with 5 treatments and 6 replicates, whose treatments consisted of the following: control diet (0), control diet plus enzymatic complex (0E), diet with 5% (5E); 10% (10E) or 15% (15E) cottonseed meal plus enzymatic complex. The following measurements were taken: body length, thoracic perimeter, waist circumference, rump width, rump height, withers height and weight in the different periods of in vivo measurements. The measurements were performed in four different periods throughout the experiment at 105, 122, 137 and 154 days of age. The inclusion of the enzyme complex and cottonseed meal in the replacement of soybean meal in the diets of pigs in the finishing phase had no effect on the morphometric characteristics (P> 0.05) of body length, thoracic perimeter, abdominal circumference, rump width, rump height, withers height and weight in the different measurement periods.