142 Evaluation of Proso Millet as a Partial or Complete Replacement for Corn in Growing-finishing Diets for Pigs. (7th May 2021) - Nguyen, Khang A
Abstract: An experiment was conducted to evaluate the effects of increasing the inclusion of proso millet on the growth performance of growing and finishing pigs. Using a randomized complete block design, 36 crossbred barrows, with an average initial weight of 22.2 kg, were randomly assigned to 1 of 4 dietary treatments (9 pens/treatment; 1 pig/pen). Diet 1 was corn-soybean meal-based (control) and Diets 2, 3, and 4 had proso millet replacing 33%, 67%, and 100%, respectively, of corn in the control diet. The diets were formulated according to 4 growth phases (P1, 25 to 50 kg BW; P2, 50 to 75 kg BW; P3, 75 to 100 kg BW; and P4, 100 to 135 kg BW) with nutrient contents formulated according to NRC (2012) recommendations. Data were analyzed using the GLIMMIX procedure of SAS, using pig as the experimental unit. In P1 and P2, no differences in average daily gain (ADG) or average daily feed intake (ADFI) were observed among treatments (P > 0.3). In P3, pigs consuming the proso millet diets had greater ADFI than pigs consuming the basal diet, especially pigs fed Diet 4 compared to pigs fed Diet 1 (3.66 vs. 3.29 kg; P < 0.01). The ADG:ADFI ratio was not affected (P > 0.1) by treatments during this period. In P4, although there was a difference in ADFI between pigs fed Diet 3 and Diet 1 (3.8 vs. 3.47 kg; P = 0.04), no decreases in ADG:ADFI ratio were observed among the four dietary treatments (P > 0.5). Average daily gain was not affected (P > 0.3) by treatments during the growing-finishing period, suggesting that the level of corn replacement up to 100% by proso millet did not affect pig growth. In conclusion, proso millet was shown to effectively replace corn in corn-soybean meal-based diet for growing-finishing pigs without compromising growth performance.