Dietary assessment of high energy ingredients of Pannicum maximum on growing pigs

Abstract

The management and production of monogastric are becoming very expensive due to the high cost of conventional feeds. There is need for cheaper feed ingredients to reduce the cost of production and make pig meat affordable for the populace. The objective of this study is to evaluate the dietary assessment of high energy ingredients of Pannicum maximum on growing pigs. A total of 45 young pigs between 18 and 19 kg live body weight on average, were used in a completely randomized design (CRD) experiment. The pigs were obtained from a landrace x large white crosses. There were five treatments of nine animals each replicated three times with three pigs per replicate. Pigs in treatment 1 (T1) were taken as the control group fed only formulated basal diet while pigs in treatments 2, 3, 4, and 5 were fed basal diet in addition to 15%, 20%, 25% and 30% of Pannicum Maximum Meal (PMM) ad libitum respectively. The whole experiment lasted for 60 days. The result revealed that pigs fed 15% PMM had significant (p<0.05) increase on their final body weight than the control and other pigs that fed PMM. Alternatively, inclusion of PMM above 15% did not have significant (p>0.05) increase in the body weight of experimental pigs than control. It was therefore concluded that PMM have a significant (p<0.05) effect on the performance of growing pigs especially at 15% level of inclusion as well as on the feed conversion ratio and daily feed intake. It was therefore recommended that Pannicum Maximum Meal (PMM) be included in pigs’ feed at 15%.