Dietary lipid sources and levels for weanling pigs

Collaborative studies comprising growth performance and metabolism experiments were conducted to reevaluate growth performance and nutrient and energy utilization responses of nursery pigs to dietary lipid sources and levels. Two lipid sources (soybean oil or tallow) were included at the rate of 1%, 3%, or 5% at the expense of cornstarch in a 2 × 3 factorial arrangement for 6 diets, and Lys was added to maintain a constant calorie:Lys ratio. A growth performance experiment (d 0 to 7, d 7 to 21, and d 21 to 35 postweaning) involving a total of 822 crossbred pigs was conducted at 9 research stations. Each station contributed 2 to 7 replicate pens with 4 to 6 pigs per pen, resulting in a total of 28 replicate pens per diet. The initial BW ranged from 5.9 to 7.3 kg, and the final BW ranged from 20.9 to 28.9 kg. Diets fed during d 7 to 21 and d 21 to 35 were evaluated with 120 barrows in 2 metabolism experiments with 10 individually fed barrows per diet to determine digestibility and retention of nutrients and energy. Lipid source and the interaction between lipid level and source did not affect growth performance. Lipid did not affect growth performance from d 0 to 7. There was a quadratic decrease (P < 0.05) in ADG with increasing level of added lipid only during d 7 to 21 postweaning. The ADFI was decreased (P < 0.01) both during d 7 to 21 and d 21 to 35 postweaning with increasing level of lipid supplementation. A linear improvement (P < 0.001) in G:F with increasing level of lipid supplementation occurred during both d 21 to 35 and d 0 to 35 postweaning. There was a linear increase in DE, ME, and nitrogen-corrected ME (MEn) of diets fed during d 7 to 21 postweaning with increasing lipid level regardless of lipid source. For diets fed during d 21 to 35 postweaning, there were interactions (P < 0.05) between lipid source and level for digestibility of DM, N, lipid, and energy and for DE, ME, and MEn of diets. The improved feed efficiency was, perhaps, partly attributable to the increase in ME content of the diets with added lipids. There were interactions (P < 0.05) between lipid source and level for efficiency of energy use for BW gain for diets fed during d 21 to 35. The efficiencies of use of DE, ME, and NE for BW gain were not affected in pigs fed diets containing increasing levels of soybean oil; however, there were linear increases in these response criteria for pigs fed diets containing increasing levels of tallow. These results indicate that the energy values of soybean oil from the 2012 NRC study used in formulating these diets were fairly accurate.