The effect of breed on the relationship between feed composition and the efficiency of protein utilization in pigs

The objective of the present experiment was to test whether the relationship between feed composition and the efficiency of protein utilization in pigs was different between two very different breeds. Forty-eight entire male pigs, half Large White x Landrace (LW x) and half Chinese Meishan (CM), were assigned at 13 kg live weight either to an initial slaughter group or to one of six feeding treatments for 6 weeks. The two feeds used were starch, with 12.52 MJ metabolizable energy (ME) and 0 kg digestible crude protein (DCP)/kg, and a high-protein feed, with 11.95 MJ ME and 0.362 kg DCP/kg. In the first week the LW x pigs were given 400 g high-protein feed/d with 0, 100, 200 or 300 g starch/d, or 200 g high-protein feed/d with 400 or 500 g starch/d. The six diets had ME:DCP ratios of between 33 and 119 MJ/kg. The diet compositions were held constant within each of the six treatments but the allowances were increased weekly on time-based linear scales to be 2.25 as great in week six as in week one. The allowances for the CM pigs were 0.75 of those for the LW x. The calculated efficiency of protein utilization, ep, was found to be directly proportional, up to a maximum value, to the ME:DCP ratio of the diet for both breeds, as found previously for LW x male and female pigs. The overall constant of proportionality was ep = 0.0108 (SE 0.00024) ME:DCP, the value of which did not differ significantly between the two breeds. The maximum observed ep values were 0.710 (SE 0.014) and 0.824 (SE 0.016) for the LW x and CM pigs respectively. It is likely that the lower maximum value for the LW x pigs was an experimental artefact due to increased feed spillage by these pigs on the two highest starch allowances used. In previous experiments the maximum value of ep was found to be 0.813 for LW x pigs, a value similar to that found here for the CM pigs. The results are consistent with the view that the two very different pig breeds have the same net efficiency in using protein and use the same rules for partitioning a scarce resource such as energy.