Effects of enzyme in palm kernel meal-based diet on blood, carcass, and organ weights in weaners pigs

Abstract

| Supplementing palm kernel meal (PKM)-based diet with an exogenous enzyme can help to improve the utilization and minimize the negative consequences of the high fibre and antinutritional factors on performance and health of animals. Forty weaned male pigs with an average initial weight of 7.85 ± 0.31 kg were used to determine the effects of supplementing a PKM-based diet with enzyme inclusion, on blood parameters, carcass and organ charac-teristics. Pigs were allotted to four diets which include the control diet containing 55% PKM while the addition of 1, 2 and 3 g/kg enzyme cocktail was tested in a complete randomized design trial that lasted seven weeks. Feed and water were provided ad-lib and blood sampled via jugular vein after the trial. Pigs fed diets containing high PKM with or without enzyme, did not manifest any significant deviation in their haematology or serum variables. Enzyme inclusions reduce cholesterol concentrations (p<0.05), but no linear or quadratic effect of the enzyme was observed on alkaline phosphatase or creatinine concentration (p>0.05). Eviscerated weight increased (p<0.05) as enzyme inclusion increased but other carcass traits were not affected. Pancreas and empty stomach weights reduced quadratically with enzyme inclusion (p<0.05) and this may ostensibly be due to improved digestive activities of the organs. This study confirms that the inclusion of enzyme in diets containing high proportion of PKM does not have any negative physiological effect on growing pigs.