Preliminary studies of liquid nutrient supplements for feeding pigs during the pre-weaning period

Abstract

In this work, the leaf biomass of the protein forage plants: Morus alba Linn, Tithonia diversifolia and Leucaena leucocephala Lam, was studied as raw material to extract their nutrients and active compounds, which allowed the evaluation of preparations extracted from the leaf biomass as a supplement in the feeding of weaning pigs. For this purpose, the leaf biomass was chopped and processed by liquid phase microbial fermentation, supplemented with final sugar cane honey, sea salt and IHPLUS-BF. A hydraulic press was used to separate the fibrous and the liquid fraction, which was named: liquid pig nutrient supplement (SLNC). This fraction was mixed daily with the conventional concentrate (CC) and fed to the pigs once a day. Six treatments were evaluated (control and SLNC from mulberry, tithonia, leucaena, SLNC from the mixture of the three plants and SLNC from the mixture of mulberry and tithonia. Groups of ten animals each were studied in a completely randomised design. In this research it was demonstrated that SLNCs prevent the occurrence of parakeratosis, improve weight gain and can replace 10 % of the dry matter of the CC in the feed of pigs during the pre-weaning stage, to improve the growth of these animals, with respect to the control treatment.