EFFECT OF MULTIENZYME SUPPLEMENTS ON THE GROWTH-PERFORMANCE OF PIGLETS DURING THE PRE-WEANING AND POST-WEANING PERIODS

Voluntary feed intake (VFI) and daily gain (DG) were measured in pre- and post-weaning piglets which were offered a control diet or one of t hree commercial multi-enzyme supplements (ME1, ME2 and ME3; Experiment s 1-3 respectively). ME1, ME2 and ME3 all contained starch and fibre d egrading enzymes, ME1 and ME2 also contained a protease and lipase. In all experiments litter groups were paired on the basis of initial wei ght and size, with one of each pair receiving the plus enzyme treatmen t. Experiments 1, 2 and 3 were conducted with 166, 192 and 234 piglets from 24, 21 and 26 litters respectively. The wheat-based control diet was formulated to 15 MJ of digestible energy and 10 g of available ly sine kg(-1). Each multi-enzyme supplement was added at 2 g kg(-1). Cre ep feeding of litter groups commenced when piglets were 21 (Experiment 1) or 14 (experiments 2 and 3) days of age. Piglets were weaned at ap proximately 28 days of age. VFI and DG were measured weekly for 21 day s post-weaning. Multi-enzyme supplementation (control vs ME supplement ) did not change post-weaning VFI (474 vs 438 g day(-1)) or DG (309 vs 319 g day(-1)) in experiment 1 (ME1) or experiment 2 (ME2) (VFI: 527 vs 517 g day(-1); DG: 299 vs 282 g day(-1)), In experiment 3, ME3 supp lementation reduced both post-weaning VFI (563 vs 491 g day(-1); P = 0 .03) and also reduced DG between 14 and 21 days post-weaning (576 vs 4 99 g day(-1); P = 0.03). These results indicate that supplementing a w heat-based creep-weaner diet with these commercial enzyme supplements provided no beneficial effect and may be detrimental.