Pyridoxine supplementation of Linola ™ meal for growing pigs

Abstract

An experiment was conducted to determine whether a pyridoxine (Vitamin B6) antagonist was responsible for the low growth performance of grower pigs fed diets containing Linola ™ meal. Thirty pigs (15 of each sex), of 20 kg live weight, were fed ad libitum diets containing wheat-soya-bean meal, wheat-soya-Linola or wheat-soya-Linola supplemented with 100 mg kg −1 pyridoxine. The pigs were slaughtered at 45 kg live weight and carcass quality and organ weights assessed. Feed intake was lower in females given Linola meal relative to soya-bean meal ( P < 0.05) but there were no significant differences with males ( P > 0.05). Pyridoxine supplementation tended to improve feed intake but the effects were non-significant ( P > 0.05). Killing-out proportion was affected by dietary treatments (lower in males given the Linola treatments) so the results for gain per day and feed conversion ratio are best considered on a carcass basis. Carcass gain per day was lower ( P < 0.05) and feed conversion ratio higher ( P < 0.001) for pigs given Linola, relative to soya-bean meal, and there were no effects ( P > 0.05) of pyridoxine supplementation on these parameters. The results indicate that the lower nutritional value in Linola meal was not improved by the addition of pyridoxine to the diets, suggesting that an anti-pyridoxine factor was unlikely to be responsible for the lower nutritional value.