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Lactose is commonly used in diets for newly-weaned pigs to ease the transition from sow milk high in lactose to dry feed, which results in increased palatability and growth performance. Similar to lactose, crude glycerol is highly digestible in pigs. In addition, glycerol may be a cost-competitive ingredient to replace corn. The objectives of the present study were to determine: 1) the nutritional value of glycerol in diets for newly-weaned pigs when replacing lactose, and 2) the nutritional value of glycerol in diets for nursery pigs when replacing lactose and corn.
In Exp 1, a total of 144 pigs were weaned at 21 d, blocked by weight, and allocated to 48 pens with 3 pigs per pen. Pens were randomly assigned to 1 of 6 dietary treatments: 0, 2.5, 5, 7.5, and 10% glycerol supplemented to replace up to 10% lactose in a basal Starter 1 diet containing 20% total lactose, which was fed for 2 wk, and a negative control diet with 10% lactose and 0% glycerol. A common starter diet was fed for the following 2 wk. In Exp 2, a total of 126 pigs were weaned at 21 d of age, blocked by weight, and allocated to 42 pens with 3 pigs per pen. Pigs were assigned to 1 of 6 treatments in a 2 x 3 factorial arrangement in a randomized complete block design with factors being: 1) glycerol inclusion in replacement of lactose in Starter 1 diets (0 or 5%) fed for 2 wk, and 2) glycerol inclusion in Starter 2 diets (0, 5, or 10%) fed for 3 wk. In Exp. 1, glycerol supplementation at 10% improved (P = 0.01) ADG and G:F during the Starter 1 period when compared to the negative control. Incremental levels of glycerol linearly (P < 0.05) increased ADG and ADFI, but did not affect G:F during Starter 1. There was no effect of feeding glycerol during the Starter 1 phase on subsequent performance during the Starter 2 phase or overall. In Exp. 2, glycerol did not affect performance during Starter 1, but it linearly increased (P ≤ 0.01) ADG and ADFI during Starter 2 and overall. At the end of the study, pigs were 1.0 and 1.5 kg heavier when fed 5 and 10% glycerol, respectively (linear, P < 0.01).
Overall, data indicate that glycerol can be added to nursery pig diets at levels of 10%, while improving growth performance.
MC Shields, E van Heugten, X Lin, J Odle and CS Stark, 2011. Journal of Animal Science, 89(7): 2145-2153. http://dx.doi.org/10.2527/jas.2010-3558
