Nemechek, J. E.Tokach, Michael D.Dritz, Steven S.Fruge, E. D.Hansen, E. L.Goodband, Robert D.DeRouchey, Joel M.Woodworth, Jason C.2016-03-282016-03-28http://hdl.handle.net/2097/32185Citation: Nemechek, J. E., Tokach, M. D., Dritz, S. S., Fruge, E. D., Hansen, E. L., Goodband, R. D., . . . Woodworth, J. C. (2015). Effects of diet form and feeder adjustment on growth performance of nursery and finishing pigs. Journal of Animal Science, 93(8), 4172-4180. doi:10.2527/jas2015-9028Three experiments were conducted to determine the effects of feeder adjustment and diet form on growth performance of nursery (Exp. 1 and 2) and finishing (Exp. 3) pigs. Treatments were arranged as a 2 x 3 factorial with the main effects of feeder adjustment and diet form. The 2 feeder adjustments were a narrow and wide feeder adjustment (minimum gap opening of 1.27 and 2.54 cm, respectively). The 3 diet forms were meal, poor-quality pellets (70% pellets and 30% fines for Exp. 1 and 2 and 50% pellets and 50% fines for Exp. 3), and screened pellets with minimal fines (3 to 10%). In Exp. 1, 210 pigs (initially 11.9 kg BW) were used in a 21-d trial with 7 pigs per pen and 5 pens per treatment. No feeder adjustment x diet form interactions were observed. There were no differences in ADG, ADFI, or G:F due to feeder adjustment. Pigs fed the meal diet had increased (P < 0.05) ADG and ADFI compared with pigs fed the poor-quality or screened pellets. Pigs fed meal or poor-quality pellets had decreased (P < 0.05) G: F compared with pigs fed screened pellets. In Exp. 2, 1,005 nursery pigs (initially 14.1 kg BW) were used in a 28-d trial with 26 to 28 pigs per pen and 6 pens per treatment. Pigs fed from the narrow feeder adjustment had decreased (P < 0.05) ADG and ADFI compared with pigs fed from the wide adjustment with no differences in G: F. Pigs fed the meal diet had decreased (P < 0.05) ADG compared with pigs fed poor-quality or screened pellets. Pigs fed meal or poor-quality pellets had decreased (P < 0.05) G: F compared with pigs fed screened pellets. In Exp. 3, 246 pigs (initially 56.8 kg BW) were used in a 69-d trial with 5 pens per treatment and 6 or 7 pigs per pen. Overall, ADFI decreased (P < 0.05) and G: F increased (P < 0.05) for pigs fed from the narrow adjusted feeders compared with the wide adjustment with no differences in ADG. Overall, pigs fed meal diets tended to have decreased (P < 0.10) ADG and had decreased (P < 0.05) G: F compared with pigs fed screened pellets; ADG and G: F in those fed poor-quality pellets were intermediate. Feeding meal or poor-quality pellets increased (P < 0.05) ADFI compared with pigs fed screened pellets. In conclusion, feeding nursery pigs from a wide feeder gap may increase ADG and ADFI with no negative effects on G: F. For finishing pigs, reducing feeder gap reduced feed disappearance and improved G: F. In all experiments, the greatest G: F improvements from pelleting were observed when the percentage of fines was minimized.Copyright © 2015. American Society of Animal Science. http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo/issn/0021-8812/Feeder AdjustmentGrowthPellet QualityPigParticle-SizeSpaceArticle