A nutritional evaluation of diets containing meat meal for growing pigs. 3. The effects of amino acid, copper and vitamin B supplements

Abstract

A series of experiments measured the effect of amino acid, copper, and vitamin B supplementation of 80 : 20 wheat--meat meal or wheat-meat and bone meal diets for Large White pigs during the growth phase between 18 and 45 kg liveweight. Diets were fed under a restricted feeding system. The addition of l-lysine to the diet increased nitrogen retention, liveweight gain, feed conversion efficiency, and lean content of the ham in experiment 1, and increased liveweight gain and feed conversion efficiency in experiment 2. No response to a lower level of l-lysine was obtained in a third experiment. There was no apparent effect of supplementary dl-methionine, either alone, or in combination with 1-lysine. A 21-fold increase in liver copper levels occurred in pigs supplemented with 250 p.p.m. copper, but no apparent effect on liveweight gain, feed conversion efficiency, or lean in the ham was detected. There was no apparent effect of a supplement containing riboflavin, pantothenic acid, and nicotinic acid on liveweight gain, feed conversion efficiency, or lean content of the ham.