PSIV-11 Effects of Phytogenic Feed Additives on Growth Performance Traits of Finishing Swine

Abstract

Abstract This study was conducted at a commercial research facility and utilized 1,092 finishing pigs (PIC® 337 × Camborough®) in a RCBD with 3 dietary treatments to determine the effects of commercially available phytogenic feed additives on growth performance traits in finishing swine for the last 35 d prior to marketing. The dietary treatments were as follows: 1) Control; 2) Aromex Pro® (AP; Delacon) fed at 0.01%; and 3) Ambitine® (AM; PMI) fed at 0.1%. Pens with 13 pigs/pen and 0.66 m2/pig were randomly allotted to treatments on the basis of live weight and gender. Pigs had ad libitum access to corn-soy diets that met or exceeded the pig’s requirements (NRC, 2012). Aromex Pro® and Ambitine® were added to the diets at the expense of corn. Dietary treatments started on day 0 (BW = 97.7 kg; SEM = 1.04) and were fed throughout the 35 d trial period. On d 21, the two heaviest pigs per pen were marketed, while the remaining pigs in each pen were marketed on d 35. Pigs and feeders were weighed on d 0, 21, and 35. Data were analyzed by using PROC MIXED of SAS® version 9.4, and pen was the experimental unit. The model included the fixed effect of treatment and random effect of replicate. Pre-planned orthogonal contrasts were used to compare AP vs. Control and AM vs. Control. Feeding AP or AM for the last 35 d in finishing both improved (P < 0.05) ADG by 4%, ADFI by 3% and final BW by 1.6 kg over Control, but did not change feed to gain or mortality. These data demonstrate that phytogenic feed additives can improve growth performance traits in finishing swine.