Efficacy of dried whey and its lactalbumin and lactose components at two dietary lysine levels on postweaning pig performance and nitrogen balance.

Two experiments were conducted to determine the efficacy of lactalbumin and lactose components of dried whey on gain and feed performance responses and N retention of weanling swine. In Exp. 1, a 2 x 5 factorial arrangement of treatments in a randomized complete block design in seven replicates was used to evaluate the efficacy of two dietary lysine levels (.90 and 1.30%) in 1) a corn-soybean meal (C-SBM) mixture, 2) C-SBM and 20% dried whey (C-SBM-DW), or the dried whey component replaced with 3 lactalbumin and cornstarch, 4) lactose and an amino acid mixture, or 5) the combination of lactalbumin and lactose. A total of 420 pigs weaned at 23 +/- 2 d of age, weighing an average of 6.87 kg BW, were used in a 3-wk experiment. Experiment 2 was a balance trial conducted as a 3 x 2 x 3 factorial arrangement in a split-plot design in three replicates. The negative (i.e., C-SBM) and positive (i.e., C-SBM-DS) control diets and the C-SBM-lactalbumin-cornstarch diets at the two lysine levels of Exp. 1 were the main plots, each evaluated for a 3-wk postweaning period. Growth rate (P less than .05), feed intake (P less than .01), N retention (P less than .01), and apparent N digestibility (P less than .05) were increased when pigs were fed the C-SBM-DW compared with the C-SBM diet.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)