LIVE WEIGHT DEPENDENT RESPONSES TO ADDING AN ENHANCED MILKY FLAVOR (LUCTAROM® ADVANCE) TO A PIGLET NURSERY FEEDING PROGRAM

A trial was conducted with 192 Landrace × Large White newly weaned 23d-old pigs to study different dosing programs of an enhanced milky flavor (Luctarom® Advance) in feeds. Piglets were randomly allocated in a factorial design with 3 blocks of 8 pens according to initial body weight (light=5,78 kg; intermediate =6,66 kg; heavy=7,38 kg) and 4 dietary treatments differing only in amount of flavor. The pre-starter phase (0 to 14 d) flavor doses were 0 (T1) or 1500 ppm (T2, T3 and T4). The starter phase (14 to 28 d) flavor doses were 0 (T1), 500 (T2), 1000 (T3) or 1500 (T4) ppm. In the 1st week post weaning, the 3 equally flavored treatments on average resulted in 25% higher ADFI (p<0.05) than T1 (90 vs 72 g). In the 2nd week, a flavoring by block interaction (p<0.05) was observed because adding flavor increased ADG more in the light (from 182 to 242 g) than in the heavy (231 to 269 g) while decreased ADG in the intermediate (238 vs 223 g) groups. In the 1st week of the starter phase, T4 pigs ADG (555 g) was significantly higher (p<0.01) than gains for T1 (485 g), T2 (457 g) or T3 (470 g). Furthermore a treatment by block interaction (p<0.05) was observed showing that lowering the flavor dose to only 500 ppm (T2) compared to T4 (1500 ppm) had a live weight dependent response on ADG such that the light pigs grew similarly in both treatments (500 vs 498 g) but grew less in the intermediate (503 vs 554 g) and heavy (382 vs 609 g) groups. Overall piglets in T4 compared to T1 showed a 10% increase in ADG (345 vs 314 g, P=0.16). We conclude that adding the enhanced milky flavor to feed results in higher ADG in weanling pigs compared to a non-flavored group. In the pre-starter phase, flavor addition is more effective among the lightest pigs. Decreasing flavor doses from pre-starter to starter diets results in a live weight dependent response in ADG such that the heavier the pigs the bigger the drop in the improvement in performance compared to the fully flavored group. tech.service.fad@lucta.com