Effects of low Lactose whey, Skim Milk and Sugar on Diet Palatability and Performance of Early Weaned Pigs

Abstract

A total of 384 crossbred pigs weaned at 3 to 4 weeks of age and averaging 5.8 to 7.9 kg in separate experiments were employed in three 5-week experiments to study the effect on performance of including low lactose whey, dried skim milk and sugar in pig starter diets. In addition, pigs were fed these diets free-choice or single-stimulus (alternating diets at 4-hr. intervals) to determine diet palatability. There were no significant differences in rate or efficiency of gain of pigs fed a corn-oat meal-soybean meal diet or diets containing 10% milk products either with or without 5% sugar. The high salt content of low lactose whey did not affect performance of pigs although inclusion of 0.5% salt caused a marked reduction in consumption of this diet during the second week when fed on a free-choice basis. Sugar increased the preference of whey diets when fed free-choice but had only a slight effect when pigs were fed the single-stimulus method. A more consistent pattern of diet preference was obtained when pigs were fed the single-stimulus method compared to free-choice feeding. The coefficient of variation was reduced from 94.9% for the free-choice method to 51.9% for the single-stimulus method.