Lysine requirements of finishing boars and gilts: A meta-analysis

The expected increase in boar (pig entire male) production while societal concerns for castration increase requires good estimations of their nutrient requirements. In this work, a meta-analytical approach was used to overcome the inconsistent results between studies that compared lysine requirements of boars and gilts. For this meta-analysis, data from 14 different studies analysing the effect of increasing dietary lysine on growth performance of finishing pigs, 70-100 kg average body weight, were extracted from 11 publications. Those studies represented 128 different treatments (53 for boars and 75 for gilts). Diets were reformulated based on NRC (2012) ingredient values to calculate standardized ileal digestible lysine to net energy ratio (SID Lys:NE) and daily SID Lys intake using average daily feed intake (ADFI). As expected, no evidence for differences in ADFI (P = 0.303) was observed between boars and gilts. However, boars grew faster (P < 0.001) and had higher gain to feed (G:F; P < 0.001). The divergent effect of SID Lys:NE on average daily gain (ADG) and G:F was analysed in a quadratic polynomial model showing different parameters for each sex (P < 0.001). Although performance between sexes was similar at low SID Lys:NE, differences were greater at higher SID Lys:NE. Furthermore, broken-line linear, broken-line quadratic (BLQ) and quadratic polynomial (QP) models were fitted to each sex to determine SID Lys:NE and SID Lys daily intake requirements to maximize ADG and G:F. Overall, QP models showed the best fit, and reported that to reach maximum ADG 0.88 (95% CI:[0.82-0.94]) or 1.01 (95% CI:[0.91-1.11]) g SID Lys/MJ, NE was required for gilts and boars, respectively. However, boar ADG was best fitted by BLQ using SID Lys daily intake as independent variable, with the requirement for maximum ADG at 24.2 (95% CI:[21.3-27.2]) g SID Lys/day. The three models reported wide confidence intervals for the requirements at maximum performance, and consequently those were overlapped when comparing boars and gilts. Maximum boars' productive performance when dietary lysine was not limiting was 116% of gilts, and at those levels the amount of SID Lys intake required per kg gain was similar between both sexes. Thus, because ADFI and Lys efficiency of gain was similar, the requirement differences were driven by the increased growth rate and gain to feed ratio between boars and gilts. In conclusion, the present study confirmed a greater productive response of boars compared to gilts when increasing dietary lysine.