Mung beans (Phaseolus aureus) for finishing pigs

Digestible energy (DE) content of raw mung beans (Phaseolus aureus (Roxb.) var Berkin) was 16.09 MJ kg−1 of dry matter (DM), measured by total faecal collection for five days in a switch-over trial with six 53 kg live weight (LW) Landrace-Large White entire males fed at 34 g kg−1 of LW, by substitution of 300 g kg−1 of ground mung beans in a wheat-based diet. Mung beans contained 1.45 mg g−1 of DM trypsin inhibitor (TI), 0.32 mg g−1 of DM chymotrypsin inhibitor (CTI), 9 g kg−1 of tannins and 51.2 haemagglutination units per gram of lectins. ing diets with 0, 100, 150, 200, 250 and 300 g kg−1 of mung beans substituted for soybean meal were formulated to contain 14.5 MJ of DE per kg, with a minimum of 0.65 g lysine per MJ of DE. Crude protein (CP) ranged from 247 to 207 g kg−1, neutral detergent fibre (NDF) from 180 to 209 g kg−1 and ether extract (EE) from 69.6 to 53.3 g kg−1 for diets with 0–300 g kg−1 mung beans respectively. Diets were fed to 61 kg entire males at 40 g kg−1 of LW for 30–35 days until slaughter at approximately 90 kg LW. ibility of organic matter (OM) (84.64 ± 0.19%) and EE (69.77 ± 0.32%) did not vary between diets, while digestibility of CP declined from 79.51% to 77.05% (P < 0.05) and digestibility of NDF increased from 70.32 to 76.60% (P < 0.01) with increasing inclusion of mung beans. Growth rate, 0.96 ± 0.02 kg per day, feed conversion, 2. 60 ± 0.05 kg of feed kg−1 gain and backfat thickness, 15.9 ± 0.27 mm at the P2 site, did not differ between diets. Internal organs appeared normal; weights as a proportion of LW did not differ between diets (pancreas 1.5 ± 0.14 g kg−1 LW; stomach 6.1 ± 0.10 g kg−1 LW; small intestine 19.6 ± 0.34 g kg−1 LW; large intestine 14.1 ± 0.30 g kg−1 LW; liver 20.7 ± 0.35 g kg−1 LW and kidney 3.8 ± 0.11 g kg−1 LW. Thus, diets did not differ in productive performance, or in the apparent effect of TI and CTI on pancreas or of lectins and tannins on the gut, liver and kidney. A safe inclusion level of 300 g kg−1 in this experiment is double the value reported for other varieties and batches of mung beans.