Amino acid and energy interactions in growing pigs 2. Effects of food intake, sex and live weight on responses to lysine concentration in barley-based diets

The responses of growing pigs to dietary lysine concentration, as influenced by food intake, sex (entire male and female) and live weight were investigated in an experiment involving 128 pigs. The basal barley-soya-bean diet (14·2 MJ digestible energy (DE) per kg) was offered either ad libitum or according t o a restricted feeding scale to both sexes from 20 to 85 kg live weight. The eight dietary lysine concentrations ranged from 8·0 to 12·2 g/kg during the 20 to 50 kg phase and from 6·4 to 9·8 g/kg during the 50 to 85 kg live-weight phase. Performance was assessed by response-surface analysis based on data from successive 10-kg live-weight intervals. Regression analysis was used to assess the response of carcass lean content after slaughter at 85 kg live weight.Daily gain of females fed ad libitum was curvilinear up to maxima of 0·72 and 0·69 g lysine per MJ DE during the 20 to 50 and 50 to 85 kg growth phases respectively. Daily gain response was small but linear up to the maximum dietary lysine concentration for all other combinations of sex and food intake.The response of carcass lean for males given food at a restricted level was linear up to the maximum dietary lysine concentration. For males given food ad libitum, carcass lean response was curvilinear with maximum lean content attained with 0·73 and 0·59 g lysine per MJ DE during the 20 to 50 and 50 to 85 kg live-weight phases respectively. Carcass lean content of females was not affected by lysine concentration within the range used.