Use of dried distillers grains with solubles and soybean hulls in nursery pig diets

A total of 3,186 pigs were used in two 21-d experiments to evaluate growth performance of nursery pigs fed different levels of dried distillers grains with soluble (DDGS) or soybean hulls. In each experiment, pigs (n = 1,593, and 24.0 lb in Exp. 1 and n = 1,593, and 27.3 lb in Exp. 2) were allotted to 72 pens (36 pens of barrows and 36 pens of gilts) with 21 or 22 pigs per pen on d 21 after weaning. A pen of barrows and pen of gilts shared a common feeder; thus, feeder was the experimental unit. In Exp. 1, treatments were a corn-soybean meal-based control diet or the same diet with 7.5, 15, or 22.5% added DDGS. Increasing DDGS from 0 to 22.5% did not affect ADG (P \u3e 0.26) or ADFI (P \u3e 0.21) but linearly (P \u3c 0.004) improved F/G. The survival rate of pigs (99.0 to 99.5%) was not affected (P \u3e 0.60) by diet. In Exp. 2, treatments were arranged as a 2 × 2 factorial with either 0 or 15% DDGS and 0 or 4% soybean hulls. Adding DDGS, soybean hulls, or the combination of DDGS and soybean hulls to the control diet did not affect (P \u3e 0.17) ADG. There was an interaction (P \u3c 0.01) between DDGS and soybean hulls for ADFI and a trend for an interaction (P \u3c 0.09) for F/G. Adding DDGS reduced ADFI and improved (P \u3c 0.04) F/G to a greater extent when added to the control diet than when added to the diet containing soy-bean hulls. Adding soybean hulls to the control diet did not affect (P \u3e 0.17) pig performance. The survival rate of pigs (99.5 to 100%) was not affected (P \u3e 0.31) by treatments. In summary, 15 to 22.5% DDGS and up to 4% soybean hulls were added to diets for 25- to 50-lb pigs without affecting ADG; increasing levels of DDGS (up to 22.5%) improved feed efficiency in these experiments.; Swine Day, 2008, Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS, 200