Comparison of meal and pellets for growing pigs fed either in troughs or off the floor

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Abstract
A co-ordinated trial has been carried out with fattening pigs at nineteen centres to compare the effects of the following methods of preparing and presenting the feed: (1) meal fed in the trough; (2) cubes fed in the trough; (3) meal fed off the floor; (4) cubes fed off the floor.Pigs fed meal off the floor had substantially worse growth rate and feed conversion than pigs on any of the other three treatments, probably because of feed wastage. With trough feeding, pigs fed cubes had slightly better growth rate and feed conversion than pigs fed meal. When the feed was given as cubes, there was little to choose between trough feeding and feeding off the floor. Faster growing pigs were slightly fatter and had slightly smaller eye muscles.