ENERGY METABOLISM AND BODY COMPOSITION OF WEANLING PIGS

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Abstract
Level of feed intake, ranging from a maintenance level to ad libitum had no effect on digestible, metabolizable or net energy for production values when a practical diet was fed to weanling pigs in two feeding trials. The relationship between energy retention and energy intake was linear above maintenance. It was concluded that digestible energy is the best practical measure of dietary energy utilization, due to the low degree of variability and ease of determination.A negative linear relationship between crude carcass fat and carcass moisture content was observed. At energy equilibrium, the pigs in both trials gained 0.09 kg per day. Pigs required 166.83 Wkg0.75 kcal and 137.41 Wkg0.75 kcal of metabolizable energy per day to maintain energy equilibrium m the two trials.