Fat supplementation of diets containing a high level of oats for growing-finishing swine.

Two 2 x 2 factorial arrangement trials were conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of fat supplementation in improving the energy value of diets containing a high level of a fibrous feedstuff (oats) for growing-finishing swine. Corn-soybean meal-based diets were used that contained either 0 or 40% ground oats and either 0 or 3% added fat. Each trial used 120 pigs (27 kg) with each treatment assigned to five pens of six pigs each. Growing diets (.80% lysine for basal diet) were given from 27 to 55 kg live weight and finishing diets (.64% lysine) from 55 to 102 kg. Diets were formulated to a constant calculated ME to lysine ratio within the growing and finishing phases. Apparent digestibilities of DM and energy were determined for the growing and finishing diets by the indigestible marker (chromic oxide) method. The inclusion of oats in the diets resulted in poorer (P less than .01) feed conversion efficiency and reduced (P less than .01) apparent DM and energy digestibilities. The addition of fat improved (P less than .01) feed conversion efficiency but had no effect (P greater than .10) on DM or energy digestibility. The improvements noted for feed conversion efficiency were similar (P greater than .10) regardless of the dietary oat content. The 3% dietary fat supplementation was equally effective in improving feed conversion efficiency whether the diets did contain or did not contain ground oats for growing-finishing swine.