Digestibility and growth performance of growing-finishing pigs fed diets with differently ground or expanded barley

Nutritive value of diets containing barley grain either milled using different methods or expanded was assessed in an experiment on 24 growing pigs (30-92 kg BW). Four diets were applied: MH - with middle hammer milled barley (1 070 mum), FH - with fine hammer milled barley (640 mum), R - with rolled barley (2 000 mum) and HE - with fine hammer milled and expanded barley. Barley constituted 74% of grower diets and 80.5% of finisher diets. Digestibility of nutrients and energy value of diets were assessed, together with the balance of nitrogen, daily gains and feed conversion. The largest differences in digestibility were found between FH diet with fine hammer milled barley and R diet with rolled barley. Digestibility of crude protein and ether extract in FH diet was significantly higher (P < 0.01) than the respective digestibility in R diet. Gross energy digestibility in FH diet was also higher compared with R diet, but the difference was not significant. The expanding of barley did not improve the digestibility of nutrients. Neither the sizes of particles (MH vs. FH) nor the grinding method (R vs. MH and FH) had a significant effect on daily gains of pigs (676-707 g) and feed conversion (3.34-3.50 kg/kg), similary like grain expanding.