Pig’s response to sequential feeding system with a variation in amino acid levels

The sequentially feeding method allows provide various diets with different nutritional compositions for a given period of time. Few studies are found related the effect of the sequentially feeding system in the pig performance. The present study aimed to investigate the effect in growing pig performance of sequentially feeding system of diets containing different lysine levels with changes at intervals of 12 hours. Sixty barrows with initial body weight of 29 kg (? 2.8) were used in a period of 28 days. The design was randomized block (initial BW), with 4 treatments (2 control groups and 2 sequentially feeding systems) with 15 repetitions being the individual pig as experimental unit. The following treatments were utilized: two controls group: positive control diet (PC, 100% of recommendations of standardized ileal digestible (SID) lysine, 100Lys) and negative control diet (NC, 70% of recommendations of SID lysine, 70Lys) where the same diet was provided during 24 hours; two sequential feeding programs (SFP): SFP1: 110Lys diet (110% of recommendations of SID lysine) provided from 0:01h to 12:00h and 70Lys diet provided from 12:01h to 0:00h; SFP2: 70Lys provided from 0:01h to 12:00h and diet 110Lys provided from 12:01h to 0:00h. The requirements for SID lysine were according to NRC (2012). To reach the required level for each treatments, proportional mixtures of two diets (higher and lower nutrient concentration) were obtained with the automatic feeder AIPF (Automatic and Intelligent Precision Feeder). The performance response of average daily weight gain (ADG), average daily feed intake (ADFI) and feed conversion (FC) were evaluated. Data were submitted to analysis of variance and when significantly it was used the Tukey test (confidence interval = 95%). The results showed that NC group had the poor FC (P < 0.05) compared with the PC group (2.00 vs 1.83) proving that this diet was deficient in lysine. However, there was not difference (P>0.05) for ADFI and ADG comparing PC treatment with SFP1 and SFP2. This results show sequentially feeding system even providing less lysine is as effective in terms of performance as the traditional method of feed supply.