Nonruminant Nutrition: Feed Additives II

A total of 384 pigs was used to evaluate the effects of benzoic acid supplementation on nitrogen balance of pigs compared to antibiotics and organic acids. Pigs were weaned at 21 d of age and fed 7 diets for 5 wk based on 3 phase feeding program following nutrient requirements from NRC. There were 8 replicates per treatment and 8 pigs per pen. Treatments were NC: negative control without any supplements; PC: positive control with Aureomycin during phase 1, 2, and 3 and Tylan during phase 4, 5, and 6; BA, and BB: benzoic acid supplementation groups with 0.5 and 1.0% benzoic acid (KalamaTM BA Feed, Emerald Performance Materials, Kalama, OR), respectively; and OA and OB: organic acid supplementation groups with 0.5 and 1.0% organic acids at 1:1 ratio of formic acid and lactic acid. At the end of 5 wk feeding, each pig representing the average body weight of each pen was selected and housed individually in metabolism crates for 4 d adjustment period followed by 5 d collection periods of fecal and urine samples to measure nitrogen balance (n=8). Fecal samples were weighed, freeze dried, ground, and analyzed for nitrogen content. Urine samples were analyzed for nitrogen content. Nitrogen digestibility of PC (83.3%), BA (84.3%), BB (85.1%) was greater (P<0.05) than NC (79.3%). Nitrogen digestibility of OA (82.3%) and OB (82.5%) did not differ to other treatment groups. Nitrogen digestibility of PC, BA, and BB did not differ among each other. The percentages of nitrogen retained in the body were 52.4, 54.6, 61.1, 68.6, 66.8, and 55.7% for NC, PC, BA, BB, OA, and OB, respectively and did not differ among treatment groups. This study shows that dietary benzoic acid supplementation improves the digestion of proteins by pigs.