Avaliação econômica da adição de blend enzimático em dietas para leitões em fase de creche

Abstract

The nursery phase is one of the most challenging phases of pig farming, due to the immaturity of the piglets' digestive system, which causes a higher nutritional challenge in terms of digesting the feedstuffs most used in pig feed, such as corn and soybean meal. Therefore, the objective was to evaluate the economic viability of the dietary inclusion of an enzyme blend for piglets in the nursery phase. A total of 64 piglets with an initial age of 21 days were distributed in a randomized block design, consisting of 4 treatments with 8 replications, considering the pen with 2 animals as the experimental unit. The treatments were: CON: control diet; RED5: feed with a 5% reduction in energy level compared to the control feed; RED2.5+blend: feed with a 2.5% reduction in energy level compared to the control feed with the addition of an enzyme blend; RED5+blend: feed with a 5% reduction in energy level compared to the control feed with the addition of an enzyme blend. For economic analysis, the average cost of ingredients in the months of April to July 2023 and the price per kg of suckling pig (July 2023) in the State of Ceará were considered. Based on weight gain and feed intake data, the feed cost (FC) and the cost per kg of weight gain (CWG) were determined. From the CWG, the economic efficiency index and the cost index were calculated. It was observed that RED2.5+blend resulted in lower CWG compared to those fed the CON or RED5 diet, not differing from those fed the RED5+blend diet in the period from 21 to 32 days of age. Similarly, the RED2.5+blend diet resulted in higher the economic efficiency index and lower cost index compared to animals fed the CON diet and those fed the RED5 diet, although not differing in relation to animals fed the RED5+ diet. blend. For the other phases, there was no effect of the dietary addition of enzyme blend for any of the parameters evaluated. It is concluded that the addition of an enzyme blend to diets with a reduction of up to 2.5% in the energy level results in lower costs per kg of weight gain and better economic efficiency index for piglets from 21 to 32 days of age.