Banana meal for feeding pigs: digestive utilization, growth performance and feeding behavior

The main objective of the present work was to determine the nutritional value and the strategies of using green banana meal (BM) in growing pigs. Two trials involving a total of 96 growing pigs were designed to study the effect of the harvest stage on the nutritional and energy values of BM (trial 1) and to evaluate the consequence of feeding gradual levels of BM on growth performance and feeding behavior in growing pigs (trial 2). In trial 1, the digestive utilization of three diets including 40% BM were compared with a control (C) soybean meal-corn diet in two batches of 12 pigs. BM was obtained from fruits harvested at 750 degrees-days (DD; early harvesting stage), 900 DD (normal harvesting stage) and 1150 DD (late harvesting stage). In trial 2, 72 Large White pigs were grouped in pens of nine animals and were given ad libitum access to one of the four dietary treatments (two pens/diet) differing from the rate of inclusion of 900 DD BM (0%, 20%, 40%, 60%). The estimated energy apparent digestibility coefficients of BM increased with the harvest stage (75.5%, 80.7% and 83.2% for BM at 750, 900 and 1150 DD, respectively). Digestible energy and metabolizable energy values were higher for BM at 1150 DD (13.56 and 13.05 MJ/kg DM, respectively) than at 900 DD (13.11 and 12.75 MJ/kg DM, respectively) or at 750 DD (12.00 and 11.75 MJ/kg DM, respectively). In trial 2, average daily gain and feed conversion ratio were not affected (P>0.05) by the rate of BM inclusion (822 g/day and 2.75 kg/kg on average, respectively). Feed intake and feeding behavior parameters were not significantly influenced by the dietary treatments except for the rate of feed ingestion with a lower value for the diet with 40% of BM (27.4 v. 32.2 g/min on average; P<0.01) when compared with the other diets. Results of this study indicate that the energy value of BM increases with the harvest stage and that BM can be incorporated up to 60% in growing finishing pig diets.