The utilization of red blood cells in diets for swine and poultry

Abstract

The purpose of this research was to determine if increasing levels of RBC would affect growth performance and carcass characteristics of finishing pigs and growth performance of broilers. Three experiments were conducted to determine the effect of incremental levels of red blood cells (RBC; 0 to 4% and 0 to 2%), and thus increasing levels of dietary Leu on growth performance and linear carcass measurements of finishing pigs. Our results suggest that feeding 3 or 4% RBC causes a decrease in growth performance. However, feeding 1 or 2% RBC in the diets of finishing pigs had no detrimental effects on growth performance. Three experiments were conducted to determine the effect of incremental levels of RBC (0, 0.5, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7%) on growth performance of broilers fed diets with supplemental L-Arg and L-Ile (adequate) and diets with no supplemental L-Arg and L-Ile (deficient). The results of this research indicate that up to 6% RBC can be added to a broiler diet without affecting growth performance as long as the diet is supplemented with L-Arg and L-Ile. Furthermore, up to 3% RBC can be added to broiler diets without supplemental Arg and Ile with no detrimental effects on growth performance. Broilers respond quite differently in growth performance to increasing levels of RBC compared with finishing pigs.