Inclusion of Yellow Field Peas and Carbohydrase Enzyme in Nursery Pig Diets to Improve Growth Performance

The main objective was to determine if yellow, short-season field peas could partially replace corn and soybean meal in mid- and late-nursery pig diets (6.5 to 7.5 kg BW in phase 1 and 10 to 13 kg BW in phase 2, respectively), and to evaluate the efficacy of a fungal hemicellulase-cellulase preparation (enzyme). Two experiments with 366 nursery pigs (n = 240 in Exp. 1, and n = 126 in Exp. 2) were conducted feeding a 2-phase program, 14 d each. Experiment 1 used a 2 * 2 factorial arrangement of treatments with 0 or 20% peas with or without enzyme addition. Experiment 2 evaluated enzyme supplementation to nursery diets containing 20% peas. There were 40 pens with 10 replications (6 pigs/pen) in Exp. 1 and 18 pens with 9 replications (7 pigs/pen) in Exp. 2. In Exp. 1, significant increases were found in ADG (385 vs. 418 g/d for the control diet and diet with peas, respectively; P = 0.01), ADFI (561 vs. 632 g/d for the control diet and diet with peas, respectively; P = 0.01), and significant decreases were found in G:F from 0 to 28 d (685 vs. 658 g/kg for the control and pea diet; P = 0.01). Enzyme supplementation tended to increase ADG (P = 0.10) from 0 to 28 d. Inclusion of yellow field peas (20%) in the mid- and late-nursery periods provided significant improvements in nursery pig growth performance compared with corn- and soybean meal-based diets. Diets including field peas, enzymes, or both were economically competitive but not superior to the corn-soybean meal diet. However, inclusion of the enzyme improved animal performance and net value in the pea diet.