Liquid diets raise cost of production

FEEDING PIGS liquid feeds containing fermented cereals results in lower feed conversion efficiency and higher production costs.

In growing pigs, feed conversion ratios were 2.28:1 for pigs fed a controlled fermented feed, compared with 2.06:1 for pigs fed the control diet, says Jayne Thompson. “So pigs fed the fermented cereal diet used an extra 0.22kg of feed to produce every 1kg of meat.”

Results were similar during the finishing stages, with fermented cereal-fed pigs needing an extra 0.16kg of feed for every 1kg of meat produced. “This resulted in fermented cereal-fed pigs having an overall feed conversion ratio of 2.47, compared with control diet-fed pigs, which had a conversion ratio of 2.26,” she says.

 Effectively, pigs fed the diet containing cereals that had undergone controlled fermentation ate more feed and grew more slowly than pigs on the non-fermented feed.

But increased production costs are where controlled fermentation of liquid feed really fails, reckons Dr Thompson.

 “Overall costs to rear a pig from about 33kg to slaughter at 102kg were more than 20p/kg deadweight higher for pigs fed the fermented cereal diet.

“About 3p/kg of this was accounted for in variable costs, with the remainder absorbed by fixed costs, mainly in energy used for controlling the fermentation, which accounted for 16.7p/kg of production costs.

 “Fermented cereal-fed pigs did score better in one area – meat quality. Meat quality in both fresh cuts and cooked meat was significantly better in fermented cereal-fed pigs, although there is no real answer to why this should be. But this isn”t enough to make up for the higher production costs and lower feed conversion ratio.