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Effects of the Addition of Dehydrated Alfalfa Meal, Fish Solubles and A "Vitamin B₁₃" Concentrate to a Purified Diet for Sows

Illinois Agricultural Experiment Station^,3

Abstract

A purified diet was used to compare sources of unidentified factors for swine during gestation and lactation.

Gestation and lactation performances of sows fed the purified control diet or this diet supplemented with 10 percent dehydrated alfalfa meal were compared in three experiments. Three samples of dehydrated alfalfa meal were used. Dehydrated alfalfa meal did not have any consistent effect upon litter weaning weight. However, 88 percent of the alfalfa-fed sows weaned litters as compared to 55 percent of the sows fed the control diet. After the sows had been on the diets 233 days, 29 percent fewer services per conception were required by alfalfa-fed sows, although after 448 days there was no difference in ovulatory rate or number of abnormalities of the reproductive tract.

There was no clear-cut evidence that menhaden fish solubles or a "vitamin B₁₃" concentrate possessed factors beneficial to gestation or lactation performance of the sow. However, litters from sows fed 3 percent menhaden fish solubles weighed 61.5 lb. more than control litters at weaning and this difference approached the 5 percent level of significance.

Dehydrated alfalfa meal depressed creep feed consumption of the suckling pig.

¹ This material is based upon part of a thesis submitted by the senior author as partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Ph.D. degree at the University of Illinois. Present address: The Crete, Mills, Crete, Nebraska.

² The authors wish to acknowledge the aid of H. W. Norton in the statistical analysis of the data and W. W. Moore for examining the reproductive tracts.

³ This investigation was supported by donation of funds or products to the University of Illinois by Central Soya Company, Inc., Fort Wayne, Indiana; The Dow Chemical Company, Midland, Michigan; Merck & Co., Inc., Rahway, New Jersey; American Cyanamid Company, Pearl River, New York and Hiram Walker and Sons, Inc., Peoria, Illinois.