Digestion of dry and high-moisture maize diets in the stomach of the pig

Abstract

1. Pigs were fitted with re-entrant duodenal cannulas anterior to the pancreatic duct, and total collections of digesta were made for 12 h periods. 2. Maize–soya-bean diets were made from maize which had been harvested with a dry-matter content of 770 g/kg and either dried, preserved with acetic or propionic acid or ensiled naturally. The pigs received two meals of these diets/d at 12 h intervals, and the amount of digesta flowing through their cannulas was measured. 3. Between 4.5 and 5.25 l of digesta flowed through the cannulas in the 12 h collection period, 0.9 of the total 12 h flow passed through the cannulas in the first 9 h with the dry-maize diet and 0.8 with the acid-treated-maize diets. 4. The mean total dry matter intake was 358 g/meal, and 304 g dry matter passed through the duodenal cannulas in the 12 h collection period. The corresponding intake and flow of nitrogen (g/12 h) was 11.1 and 9.6, and for chromic oxide 1.13 and 0.94. 5. The pigs consumed 205 g starch (total α-linked glucose polymers)/meal, and 1.5 g free glucose/meal. Only 110 g starch and 4.1 g free glucose reached the duodenal cannulas, suggesting that digestion and absorption of up to 92 g glucose had taken place anterior to the pancreatic ducts.