Poultry offal ensiled with lactobacillus acidophilus for growing and finishing swine diets

Poultry offal (heads, feet, viscera) from a broiler processing plant was ground and mixed with corn, dried molasses and a Lactobacillus acidophilus culture. Fermentation was shown to be effective in batch sizes of 3.8, 75.7 and 208.1 liters, as well as a 1,360-kg silo. It was generally complete at 72 h. In trial 1, rats were fed silage mixtures of 60:30:5:5, 45:45:5:5 and 30:60:5:5, offal, corn, molasses and inoculant, respectively. Rats did not gain as well when fed the silage diets (P less than .05) as when fed the basal diet; however, the ranking of silages was 45:45, 60:30 and 30:60, offal-to-corn ratio for rat daily gains and feed conversions. In trial 2, growing-finishing pigs were fed the 60:30:5:5 silage at rates of 0, 10, 20 and 30% of the diet. Average daily gains and feed-to-gain ratios were not affected by including offal silage at up to 20% of the diet, but 30% offal silage in diets resulted in depressed gains (P less than .05) and increased feed-to-gain ratios. Carcasses were not different among treatments for dressing percentage, length, average backfat and percentage of ham, loin, shoulder, lean cuts and primal cuts. Carcasses from pigs fed 20 and 30% offal silage had significantly darker and firmer loin-eyes than those from control fed pigs. Marbling was higher (P less than .05) in loin-eyes from pigs fed 30% offal silage as compared with those from pigs fed 0% offal silage.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)