Effect of dietary enzyme supplementation on digestibility and growth performance of pigs fed hulled or hull-less barley-based diets: An in vivo and in vitro study

The effect of xylanase and beta-glucanase supplementation on nutrient digestibility, growth performance and Carcass characteristics of pigs fed hulled and hull-less barley-based diets was determined by a metabolism trial, a growth trial and in vitro methods.;A metabolism trial was conducted using eighteen gilts [47 +/- 2 kg (SD)]. randomly assigned to one of six dietary treatments. The experimental diets consisted of hull-less or hulled barley supplemented with xylanase (xyl) or xylanase + beta-glucanase (xyl + beta-glu) or without enzyme.;The three-stage in vitro method proposed by Boisen (1991) (Method A) was carried out with modifications (Methods B, C and D) using amylase, lipase, cellulase, hemicellulase and ViscozymeRTM for the prediction of in vivo fecal digestibility for dry matter (DM), nitrogen (N) and digestible energy (DE) of ten swine diets.;Although no significant effects were observed between types of barley or enzyme supplementation in growth trials, the improvements in nutrient digestibility with hull-less barley and xylanase supplementation were encouraging. The lack of a large number of samples for which in vivo digestibility is known and the narrow range in digestibility of common swine rations make the development of an in vitro method difficult. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)...