Nutritional Value of Opaque-2 Corn for Young Chicks and Pigs

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Abstract
One-day-old chicks and 25-day-old pigs were used to study the effect of replacing normal hybrid corn with opaque-2 corn in diets containing varying levels of supplemental soybean meal. At suboptimal protein levels, both chicks and pigs gained significantly (P < 0.01) more with lower feed/gain ratios when opaque-2 corn replaced an equal amount of normal corn in the diet. There was a significant (P < 0.01) quadratic increase in body weight gain and decrease in feed required per unit of gain by chicks and pigs fed increasing levels of soybean meal. Because of the higher protein and lysine content of opaque-2 corn as compared with normal hybrid corn approximately 5% less soybean meal was required in diets containing opaque-2 corn to result in maximum performance of chicks or pigs.