The early weaning of pigs V. The inclusion of digestive enzymes and antibiotics in diets for pigs weaned at 6–7 lb. live weight

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Abstract
1. Dry-meal diets for pigs weaned at 6–7 lb. mean live weight and 6·9 days mean age were supplemented with antibiotic, pepsin and an α-amylase preparation according to a factorial design involving sixty-four pigs on eight treatments. Antibiotic was included in the respective diets from weaning to 40 lb. live weight and the enzymes from weaning to 25 lb. live weight.2. Antibiotic supplementation gave a 12·5% increase in rate of growth from weaning to 40 lb. P < 0·001) by reducing the incidence of scour and increasing food consumption from weaning to 25 lb. Antibiotic exerted no effect upon efficiency of food conversion.3. Pepsin supplementation increased the incidence of scour and reduced rate of growth by 3·7% whilst being fed (P < 0·1) and by 8·6% after it was omitted at 25 lb. live weight (P < 0·01). Efficiency of food conversion was reduced by 5·5% when pepsin was fed (P < 0·05) and by 4·6% after it was omitted at 25 lb. live weight (P < 0·1).4. α-Amylase appeared to exert little influence upon either growth rate or efficiency of food conversion except in the presence of pepsin. It appeared to counteract the harmful effects of pepsin on growth rate from weaning to 25 lb. and on food conversion efficiency from 25 to 40 lb. This resulted in a 5·5% increase in growth rate during the first period (P < 0·01) and 5·7% improvement in food conversion efficiency during the second period (P < 0·05).5. The overall effects of antibiotic, pepsin and α-amylase supplementation upon time taken to reach 40 lb. live weight were a reduction of 5·6 days, an increase of 3·8 days and a reduction of 3·9 days, respectively.