Fiber in Animal Nutrition

31 Effect of fiber on swine performance moisture penetration necessary for probio- tic bacteria. Feeding trials with a focus on fiber content show good results on piglet performance. Fonseca Pascoal et al. (2012) investigated the effect of different fiber sources (cellulose, soya hulls and citrus pulp) with different physicochemica l proper t ies on piglet per formance pa rameters . Signi f icant dif ferences between the diets were not observed but feeding a soluble f iber like citrus pulp resulted in the lowest daily gain and highest FCR (table 10). The insoluble cellulose showed the best results while soya hulls a combination of insoluble fiber and soluble fiber showed intermediate results. A higher incidence of diarrhea was observed in the diets with citrus pulp and soya hulls followed by the control group (p<0.01). The animals that were supplemented with cellulose showed the lowest appearance of diarrhea (table 6). This trial shows how the characteristics of different fiber sources take influence on the gut and thereby performance of piglets. The influence of insoluble NSPs in wea- ning diets was investigated by Gerritsen et al. (2015). After weaning on day 28 a total of 180 piglets were assigned to three treat- ments. A positive control (high in digestible protein), a negative control (standard cereal based) and an experimental diet (standard +15% insoluble NSPs as wheat straw and oat hulls). The diets were fed the first 14 days after weaning. In experiment 1 the insoluble NSP significantly increased ADFI (p<0.001) and improved feed conversion throughout the feeding trial. ADGwas increased signifi- cantly from day 0–7 when compared to the negative control diet. Experiment 2 involved the investigation of enzyme activity, intestinal morphology and microflora in the ileum, colon along with the determination of organ weights. Including wheat straw and oat hulls as insoluble fiber source stimulated a physi- cal (higher stomach weight) and microbial adaptation of the gut without reducing the performance of the animals. At the Agricultural Center “Haus Duesse” in Germany (Stalljohann and Patzelt, 2009) the influence of insoluble cellulose (Vitacel) on performance was investigated during a six week piglet rearing period (table 11). 130 piglets in the control and 126 piglets in Control Arbocel Farrowing Birth length (min) 248 226.6 Total born piglets (Ø /litter) 11.2 11.8 Live born piglets (Ø /litter) 10.8 11.5 Litter birth weight (kg) 15.9 19.6 Weaning Weaned piglets (Ø/sow) 9.9 11.0* Weaned litter weight, (kg) 69.4 77.3* Litter weight gain, (kg) 49.6 57.0* Table 9: Influence of Arbocel on reproductive parameters (Borbolla and Hortado, 2011) *significant p < 0.05 © ERLING Verlag