Quantitative Valine Requirement of the Weanling Pig

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Abstract
Weanling pigs were grown on corn-amino acid diets of equal nitrogen content which contained sufficient DL-valine to provide utilizable L-valine at levels of 0.3, 0.4, 0.5, 0.6 and 0.7% of the diet. The rate of gain and efficiency of feed utilization were markedly inferior at the 0.3% L-valine level, while the gain and feed utilization were uniformly high when the diet contained 0.4 to 0.7% L-valine. Assuming that D-valine is inactive, these data suggest that the L-valine requirement of the weanling pig is 0.4% of the total diet, 3.6% of the digestible crude protein, or 3.1% of the total crude protein. The high quality of the protein in the corn-amino acid diets was demonstrated by a protein efficiency of 3.2 at the 0.4% L-valine level.