The effect of feeding wheat distillers dried grain with solubles on growth performance and nutrient digestibility in weaned pigs

The effects of substituting soybean meal with wheat distillers dried grain with solubles (DDGS) as an energy and amino acid source on growth performance and dietary nutrient digestibility were evaluated in 240 weaned pigs with an initial body weight (BW) of 6.2 ± 1.2 kg. Five pelleted wheat-based diets containing 0, 50, 100, 150, or 200 g wheat DDGS/kg were formulated to contain 10.0 MJ/kg net energy (NE) and 1.15 g standardised ileal digestible (SID) lysine (Lys)/MJ NE and were fed for 4 wk. For d 0–28, increasing dietary inclusion of wheat DDGS quadratically reduced BW gain (P<0.001) mainly due to a quadratically reduced (P<0.001) feed intake but also a reduced (P<0.001) feed efficiency. At d 28, pigs fed 50, 100, 150 and 200 g wheat DDGS/kg were 0.1, 0.1, 0.4 and 5.5 kg lighter (P<0.001) than pigs fed 0 g wheat DDGS/kg. In conclusion, weaned pigs fed diets formulated to equal NE and SID amino acids can be fed up to 100 g wheat DDGS/kg without reducing final body weight (BW) and up to 150 g wheat DDGS/kg with limited reductions in growth performance. Despite similar DE content among diets, inclusion of 200 g wheat DDGS/kg of drastically reduced growth performance of weaned pigs.