The use of an alternative feed ingredient in the diet of pigs

Abstract

The main grain feeds for animals in our country are still corn, wheat and barley. It is known that animals and poultry are competitors to humans in terms of grain consumption. Therefore, it is currently relevant in the fi eld of mono-gastric animals feeding to search for non-traditional feed sources. One of these is sorghum grain. The purpose of the work was to increase the live weight of young pigs when using low-cost compound feed with sorghum. We carried out a scientifi c and economic experiment at the LLC “TOPAGRO” enterprise in the Volgograd region on young pigs of three-breed hybrids. The animals of the control group received an farm diet with corn, and in the diet of the animals of the 1st, 2nd and 3rd experimental groups, 50, 75 and 100 % of corn was replaced with sorghum. In the feeding diet of pigs, partial or complete replacement of corn grain with sorghum of the variety Kamyshinskoe 75 contributed to an increase in the digestibility of nutrients compared with the indicators of analogues of the control group. The live weight of pigs on 119 days of experiment in the 1st experimental group was by 1,77 % higher than the control group, in the 2nd experimental group by 3,09 % (P > 0,95) and in the 3rd experimental group by 2,66 kg than in the control group. Control slaughter of animals has shown that the slaughter yield in the experimental groups was higher than in the control group from 0,53 to 0,91 abs.%. Thus, the replacement of corn grain with sorghum in the diets of pigs of the 1st, 2nd and 3rd experimental groups positively aff ected the digestibility of nutrients of compound feed and meat productivity of pigs.