Effects of rice and nonstandard soybean feeding on the growth and meat quality in finishing pigs

We studied the most well-balanced combination approach in terms of growth, meat quality and feeding costs in the case of feeding growing-finishing pigs using rice and non-standard soybean. For the design of the diet feed, we designated those fed only with commercially-available diet as the control group, those fed with commercially-available diet along with rice (20%) and non-standard soybean (5%) as test group 1, those fed with commercially-available diet along with rice (30%) and non-standard soybean (5%) as test group 2, and those fed with commercially-available diet along with rice (40%) and non-standard soybean (5%) as test group 3. Each group consisted of 6 triple-crossbred (LWD) pigs (3 barrows and 3 sows) and was fed during the later growing-finishing period (70kg to 110kg). As a result, we observed no significant difference between each group in terms of the dietary intake, the daily average weight increase, the carcass weight or the longissimus thoracis muscle's cross-section area. The backfat thickness resulted to be significantly large in test group 3 in comparison with test group 1, while the fat color's value L resulted to be significantly high in the test group3 in comparison with the control group. Also, we observed no significant difference in their intramuscular fat volumes, fat melting points or fatty acid compositions in their longissimus thoracis muscles and back fat inner layers. Concerning the feeding costs arising during the later growing-finishing period, by supposing the feeding cost for the control group to be 100%, it was estimated to be 86.2% for test group 1, 81.6% for test group 2 and 78.2% for test group 3. Consequently, we surmised that feed cost could be reduced approximately 20% by feeding the pigs with commercially-available diet along with rice (30% or less) and non-standard soybean (5% or less) during the later growing-finishing period, when they needed to be sufficiently fed with rice and non-standard soybean, while achieving growth, carcass weight and meat quality as good as when they were fed only with commercially-available diet.