Amino acid supplementations of high copra meal diets for growing-finishing pigs [Philippines]

Results showed that supplementation of the four amino acids to copra meal diet improved the average daily gain, feed conversion ratio, length of feeding days and loin eye area by 26.8, 20.2, 21.0 and 21.0 percent, respectively, over the negative control (C diet) and were significant better than the other copra meal diets supplemented with only two (CLM) [lysine and methionine] or three amino acids (CLMTH and CLMT) [lysine, methionine and theronine and lysine, methionine and tryptophan]. Performance of pigs on CLMThT diet [lysine, methionine, threonine and tryptophan] was comparable to that of pigs fed the corn-soy diet. Additions of four amino acids to copra meal diet also improved significantly the apparent digestion coefficient of dry matter (ADCDM) and crude protein (ADCCP), the digestible and metabolizable energy content of the ration as well as the apparent biological value (BV), net protein utilizat1763ion (NPU) and blood urea-N (BUN) content of the pig compared to the other copra meal deits, but had significantly poorer, ADCDM, ADCCP, NPU and BUN values except apparent biological value than corn-soy diet. Pigs fed CLMTht diet had significantly larger loin eye area and higher lean cut yield than those fed copra meal diet without amino acid supplementation, but only slightly better than when only two or three amino acids were added and were comparable to pigs on the corn-soy diet. Furthermore, pigs on CLMTht diet had significantly lower leaf fat than those on the other treatments. In general, pigs on the copra meal diets had significantly firmer fat and more saturated fatty acids content of backfat than those fed corn-soy diet. Other carcass parameters such as dressing percentage, marbling, lean firmness, color, pH of lean and acid value of backfat were similar for the different treatment groups. The results showed that 40% copra meal with lysine, methionine, threonine and tryptophan supplementation could replace soybean meal up to 57% and 100% in growing and finishing diets for swine, respectiv