Effect on growth performance of growing pigs fed a dry diet, a naturally fermented diet or an inoculated fermented diet

Abstract

Alternatives to in-feed antibiotics have become increasingly important due to concerns about the rising incidence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Fermented liquid diets may be one way to solve this problem as fermented feed is characterised by high numbers of lactic acid bacteria and yeast, a low pH and a high concentration of lactic acid (Brooks et al. 1996). Feeding liquid diets to slaughter pigs, compared to dry diets, has shown to improve the efficiency of feed utilisation albeit the effect on growth rate is less consistent compared to dry feed (reviewed by Jensen and Mikkelsen 1998). This study investigated the growth performance of growing pigs fed either a fermented liquid feed or a dry diet under a commercial setting.