Effect of Dried Porcine Placenta on Growth Performance in Post-Weaning Pigs

The objective of this research was to investigate the effect of substituting fish meal with dried porcine placenta (DPP) on the growth performance in post-weaning pigs. The experimental animals included 25 males and 25 females. The initial age was approximately 6 wk and the experiment lasted 21 days. Animals fed without DPP acted as the control group, treatment 1 (DPP1), treatment 2 (DPP2), treatment 3 (DPP3) involved substituting fish meal with 40, 60 and 80 % DPP, respectively, while treatment 4 (DPP4) involved entirely substituting fish meal with DPP. Animals in the DPP3 group had the highest final weight and average daily gain (31.15 ± 2.90 kg and 0.69 ± 0.14 kg/head/day). In addition, the feed conversion ratio of the animals in the DPP3 group was the lowest (1.45 ± 0.29). This result indicated that DPP is an effective alternative protein source for swine feed since it significantly improved growth performance. However, substituting fish meal with 100 % DPP would not be a good choice for increased growth performance. In future studies, more research should examine in depth other important traits such as immune traits or growth traits in other periods. Furthermore, processing cost and operating cost of DPP should be considered for sustainable economic efficiency.