Meat quality and performance of pigs fed diets with fish silage meal

Abstract

The objective of this work was to determine the nutrient digestibility and metabolizable energy (ME) of fish silage, as well as to evaluate the effect of the dietary inclusion of fish silage meal (FSM) in diets on the performance, carcass characteristics, meat quality, sensory analysis of meat and mortadella, and economic viability of growing and finishing pigs. In the digestibility assay, 16 barrows (33.20±4.93 kg) received diets with and without FSM. The fish silage had 39.01% crude protein and 4,032 kcal kg^-1 ME. In the performance assay, 32 barrows (26.00±1.68 kg) were fed diets containing different inclusion levels of FSM (0, 25, 50, and 75%). FSM, obtained from the mixture (1:1) of fish silage with corn, showed a quadratic effect on average daily gain, and the best result was obtained with the inclusion level of 25.83%. The results for feed conversion and economic viability indicate that up to 25% FSM, corresponding to 5.87% of fish silage based on dry matter, can be used in the pig growing and finishing phases.