Responses of Growing Rats and Pigs to Diets Containing Varying Levels of Dried Brewers’ Spent Grains Supplemented with Bergazym-an Exogenous Enzyme Complex

Grower pigs (n=32) with mean initial weight of about 15.38kg were randomly allocated to four dietary treatments based on sex and live weight in a Randomized Complete Block Design. Each treatment had four (4) replicates of a castrate and gilt in one replicate. The diets were designated as T0 (Control), T10, T20 and T30 containing DBSG at 0, 10, 20 and 30% respectively. Diets T10, T20 and T30 contained Bergazyme at 25g/kg of the diet. Both feed and water were provided ad-libitum. Each pig upon attaining 70±0.5kg on the weighing day was removed for blood collection and slaughtered immediately for carcass studies. Rats with overall initial mean weight of about 102.8g were also randomly allocated to the same dietary treatments and experimental design as indicated earlier. Each treatment had four (4) rats with each one serving as a replicate. Rats were weighed at weekly intervals for four (4) weeks and were subsequently chloroformed and dissected for carcass studies. Rats had ad-libitum access to feed and water. Overall, it was more economical to raise pigs on the T30 dietary treatment because it had the lowest feed cost per kg gain value. However, pigs on the T0 diet tended to have leaner carcasses than their counterparts on the DBSG plus enzyme dietary treatments. The DBSG diets did not have any significant (P > 0.05) influence on the blood profile and relative carcass parameters studied except the globulin, P2 measurement and leaf fat. The feed cost per kg weight gain and total feed cost for the rats significantly (P < 0.05) decreased at the higher level of DBSG (i.e. 30% DBSG/kg diet). It was concluded that Grower-Finisher pigs can be fed diets containing up to 30% DBSG supplemented with Bergazyme, without any adverse effects on growth performance, carcass characteristics and blood profile.