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Matching Livestock Systems with Available Resources |
MEKARN Regional Conference 2007 |
The present study aimed at evaluating the effect of increasing the protein level in the diet, supplied by a mixture 30 % fish meal and 70 % mixture of cassava leaves meal (CLM and sweet potato vines meal (SPVM) on the performance of growing pigs. The mixture of CLM and SPVM consist 50 % CLM and 50 % SPVM as DM. Three farmers kept twenty - one crossbred pigs (MC x LW) with an average initial live weight of 20 kg that were randomly allocated into 3 treatment groups, with 3 pens and two or three pigs per pen on each farm. The three experimental diets were formulated according to the two growing phases, 20 to 50 kg (phase 1) and 50 to 90 kg (phase 2), and contained: Low, 12 and 10 % CP; Medium, 14 and 12 % CP; High, 16 and 14 % CP (% in DM) in phase 1 and phase 2, respectively.
There were no treatment effects on final live weight, daily live weight gain and feed conversion ratio, but the cost of feed per kg live weight gain was significantly higher for the high protein level, because of the high cost of fish meal.
Dietary protein levels of 14 % CP for pigs of 20 to 50 kg and 12 % CP for pigs of 50 to 90 kg (as DM) with the protein supplied by 30 % fishmeal and 70 % mixture of CLM and SPVM can be recommended as they resulted in reasonably good growth performance and gave the best economical efficiency. Cassava and sweet potato based pig production systems play an important role in the economies of small farmers in Central Vietnam.