Faba beans in diets for growing-finishing pigs

Abstract

Two experiments were carried out to study the effects of using the new faba bean (Vicia faba L.) cultivar Kontu as a domestic protein source for growing-finishing pigs.In Experiment 1,120 pigs were used with a body weight (BW)of 25–110 kg to study the effects of replacing 0, 25, 50, 75,and 100%of rapeseed meal with faba beans in barley +rapeseed meal based diets. Restrictedly fed grower and finisher diets contained 137–317 and 114–260 g kg–1 faba beans, respectively. A barley +soya bean meal based diet was included as a control. The replacement of rapeseed meal with faba beans exerted a quadratic effect on daily weight gain and on the feed conversion ratio of pigs in the growing period and during total fattening (P