Growth perfomance of weaner-pigs fed graded levels of maize cob meal based diet

Abstract

Twenty four weaner pigs weighting 8±25kg on average at 56 days of age were used to study the effect of feeding maize-cob-meal diet on the performance of weaner pigs. The pigs were divided into four treatment groups, each consisting of six pigs and further replicated three times with two pigs in a replicate. Four treatment diets were formulated to contain 0, 10, 20, and 30% maize cob meal based diets and offered to the pigs in a completely randomized design. The pigs were weighted at beginning of trial period and subsequently on weekly basis. Feed intake was determined by obtaining the difference between the quantity of feed offered and quantity leftover the next morning. Feed conversion ratio was computed. The feed intake of the groups increased with increasing dietary level of the test material, and was significantly higher (p<0.05) at 10% dietary level. The feed conversion ratio of the groups followed the same trend, increasing significant (p<0.05) at 10, 20 and 30% dietary levels. The feeding of different levels of maize cob to weaner pigs did not result in significant differences (p>0.05) in the cost benefit parameters.

Keywords: Maize-cob-meal, weaner pigs, performance