Effects of replacing fish, chicken, or poultry by-product meal with fermented soybean meal in diets fed to weanling pigs

Background: fermented soybean meal (FSBM) by virtue of its method of processing has lost some anti- nutritional factors such as some oligosaccharides and antigens. Therefore, it is possible to include FSBM in weanling pig diets to replace fish meal (FM), chicken meal (CM), or poultry by-product meal (PBM). Objective: three experiments were conducted to test the hypothesis that FSBM may replace FM, CM, or PBM in diets fed to weanling pigs. Methods: in Experiment 1, a total of 192 pigs (initial BW: 6.88 kg) were randomly allotted to 4 dietary treatments: negative control (NC) and positive control (PC) without or with FM and protein plasma; low level of FSBM replacing FM, and high level of FSBM replacing FM and protein plasma. In Experiment 2, a total of 175 pigs (initial BW: 6.86 kg) were randomly allotted to 5 dietary treatments, which were similar as Experiment 1 but with 3 levels of FSBM. In Experiment 3, 175 pigs (initial BW: 6.97 kg) were allotted to 5 dietary treatments: NC, FM diet, chicken meal (CM) diet, poultry by-product meal (PBM) diet, and FSBM diet. Results: the final BW of the pigs in each experiment was not different among treatments, except for Experiment 2 in which adding high level of FSBM reduced final BW (p<0.05). Likewise, the G:F (feed conversion efficiency) for the overall experiment were not different among treatments in Experiments 1 and 2. However, in Experiment 3, G:F was greater (p<0.05) for pigs fed FM diet than for pigs fed other diets, but G:F was not different among pigs fed CM, PBM, or FSBM diet. Conclusions: fermented soybean meal may replace FM, CM, or PBM in diets fed to pigs during 4 week post-weaning period without affecting pig growth performance.