Hybrid rye has the potential to be a cost-effective ingredient in swine diets. Several studies observed slightly reduced feed intake for pigs fed increasing hybrid rye substituting for wheat or corn, which in turn resulted in lower average daily weight gain. Typically, the growing pig will eat to meet their energy requirements, meaning that for diets with a high energy value a lower daily feed intake is needed to maintain growth performance. The current experiment was designed to determine if an increased dietary energy content will compensate for reduced feed intake of pigs fed diets formulated with rye substituting for wheat. Our objective was to determine the effects of 40% hybrid rye inclusion in diets formulated to be either low or high in net energy (NE) on growth, feed intake, and energy digestibility of growing hogs.
Results showed it may be useful to consider increasing the NE level for the first phase diet in the grower-finisher phase to avoid a reduction in growth performance when feeding 40% hybrid rye. After the first 17 days, pigs did well on the 40% hybrid rye diets regardless of the dietary NE level, resulting in similar feed intake and final body weight as hogs fed wheat diets. A good strategy to save money on feed costs in the grower-finisher barn would be to reduce the dietary NE level, as long a hogs can increase the feed intake to make up for the reduced energy level.
Response of growing hogs to the inclusion of hybrid rye in low or high energy diets (full article)
