Partial and total replacement of barley by triticale in diets for growing pigs

Abstract

Seventy-two Landrace × Large White pigs were fed six diets based on cereals and meat industry by-product meals to a restricted scale of intake over the liveweight range 25–85 kg. The cereal source in each diet was one of the following: barley; a 50/50 mixture by weight of barley and one of three varieties of triticale namely ‘Aranui’, ‘Karere’, or ‘Lasko’; or solely ‘Lasko’ or ‘Aranoi’ triticale. Partial dietary substitution of the triticales for barley did not influence growth rates or feed conversion ratios. There were significant (P < 0.05) improvements in growth rate (5.4%) and efficiency of feed utilisation (5.6%) when ‘Lasko’ triticale wholly replaced barley in the diet; this probably resulted from its relatively higher total lysine and digestible energy levels. Complete substitution of ‘Aranui’ triticale for barley, where chemical compositions of the grains were similar, did not affect pig performance. Killing-out percentage and backfat thickness were not influenced by the cereal source of the diet. These findings emphasise the limitation of using average compositional data from the literature when contemplating the substitution of triticale for other cereals in diet formulation.

Keywords:

• barley
• pigs
• animal growth
• nutrition
• diet
• triticale