Performance of pigs fed meat and bone meal diets on a basis of available lysine

A growth expriment was conducted with 50 pigs (25-100 kg) to study the performance and carcass characteristics when the pigs were fed diets formulated on the basis of available lysine determined by Carpenter's method. The control diet consisted of barley and soybean meal (S).In the other four diets, either 1 or 2 thirds of the digestible crude protein of S was replaced by meat and bone meal (M) of low (L) or high (H) ash content (21 and 33 %). Each diet formulated to contain 7.0 g FDNB-reactive lysine per unit (=9.3 MJ NE). The pigs were fed restrictedly and the same amout of energy was given in all treatments. The results were analyzed by using an analysis of variance and orthogonal contrasts. The daily gains (DG) were 859, 830, 805, 854 and 813 g, and feed coversion ratios (F/G) 20.8, 22.2, 22.4, 21.4 and 22.6 MJ NE/kg gain for S, ML1, ML2, MH1 and MH2 diets, respectively. The DG was lower and F/G higher in M diets compared to S diet (p<.01, p<.001). The DG decreased and F/G tended to increasing M level (p<.001, p=.07). The DG tended to be lower (p=.09) with ML than MH diets. The meat pecentage tended (p=.08) to be lower in M diets compared to the S diet. In conclusion, Carpanter's method over- estimated the availability of lysine in M for pigs, which indicates that the FDNB-reactive lysine of M is utilized to a lesser extent than that of S.