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Dehydrated Alfalfa Meal as a Dietary Ingredient for Swine

Illinois Agricultural Experiment Station, Urbana

Abstract

Three experiments were conducted with swine to study dehydrated alfalfa meal as a supplementary source of protein and as an energy replacement for yellow corn in the diet. Growing-fattening pigs were fed diets containing practical ingredients for a six week period in drylot.

With a diet containing 8.8% protein which supported suboptimum gains in the fattening pig, additions of 10 or 20% alfalfa meal had a very limited ability to provide supplementary protein and increase gains; levels of 30 and 40% alfalfa meal markedly depressed the rate and efficiency of gain. As compared to a standard diet, liveweight shrinkage prior to slaughter was lower on the low-protein diet. Specific gravity of carcasses of pigs fed the standard diet was higher than for those fed the low-protein diet either with or without alfalfa meal. In addition, levels of 10 to 40% alfalfa meal added to the low-protein diet decreased the dressing percentage.

In the presence of adequate protein, dietary levels of alfalfa meal of 20% or greater depressed the rate and efficiency of gain, and this inhibition was similar with either soybean oil meal or menhaden fish meal as the source of supplementary protein with yellow corn. When levels of 20 or 30% alfalfa meal replaced yellow corn, the decrease in efficiency of gain but not that in rate of gain was completely eliminated by the addition of corn oil to equalize the calculated digestible nutrient content of the diets.

¹ The authors wish to acknowledge Hiram Walker and Sons, Inc., Peoria, Illinois; American Cyanamid Company, Pearl River, New York; A. E. Staley Mfg. Co., Decatur, Illinois; and Central Soya Company, Fort Wayne, Indiana, for funds and products which made this investigation possible.