The effect of the ratio of standardized ileal digestible lysine to metabolizable energy on growth performance, blood metabolites and hormones of lactating sows

Table 6 The effect of dietary ME level on litter growth (Exp. 1)

Item	Parity	No.	ME level, Mcal/kg								P-value
			3.06	3.16	3.20	3.25	3.30	3.40	Mean¹³	SEM	Treat	Linear	Quadratic
Initial litter weight, kg	1	36	13.98	13.35	13.10	13.44	13.92	13.37	13.54^x	0.35	0.45	--	--
	2	36	14.34	14.76	14.84	15.34	15.79	15.47	15.12^y	0.81	0.86	--	--
	3+	113	16.43	16.81	16.51	16.75	16.46	16.25	16.53^z	0.43	0.95	--	--
	Overall²	185	15.68	15.94	15.65	15.98	15.96	15.69	15.82	0.38	0.91	--	--
Litter weight at weaning, kg¹	1	36	72.57	74.63	72.99	73.64	73.35	73.40	73.35^x	1.89	0.83	0.64	0.18
	2	36	76.69	76.65	76.63	76.58	74.93	74.74	75.94^x	2.25	0.68	0.86	0.71
	3+	113	77.33^a	77.94^ad	82.66^b	80.64^c	79.24^cd	78.63^ad	79.39^y	1.43	< 0.01	0.97	< 0.01
	Overall²	185	76.42^a	77.19^a	80.06^b	78.83^b	77.35^a	76.95^a	77.80	1.14	< 0.01	0.91	0.07
Litter weight gain, kg/d¹	1	36	2.08	2.16	2.10	2.12	2.11	2.11	2.11^x	0.04	0.82	0.67	0.46
	2	36	2.17	2.18	2.17	2.17	2.12	2.10	2.15^x	0.05	0.66	0.56	0.41
	3+	113	2.16^a	2.18^ad	2.35^b	2.28^c	2.23^cd	2.21^ad	2.23^y	0.03	< 0.01	0.29	< 0.01
	Overall²	185	2.15^a	2.18^a	2.28^b	2.23^b	2.18^a	2.17^a	2.20	0.02	< 0.01	0.69	< 0.01

¹Initial litter weight, number of piglets suckling and lactation length were used as covariate in the analysis
²Parity effect was included in the model
³Parity effect; treatment effect was included in the model
^{a, b, c, d}Within a row, values with no common superscript differ significantly (P < 0.05)
^{x, y, z}Within a column, values with no common superscript differ significantly (P < 0.05)

ISSN: 2049-1891