Bulky feeds for pigs: A consideration of some non-nutritional aspects

This paper considers some of the ‘non-nutritional’ aspects of feeding bulky diets to pigs, including behaviour, health and disease, climatic interactions and considerations of water and waste storage requirements. Aspects of behaviour relate chiefly to effects associated with the increased intake of fibrous diets needed to meet the animal's feed requirements and their subsequent digestion and utilisation. Addition of fibre to diets alleviates disease problems, such as gastric ulceration and gastro-enteritis, although the mode of action is not clearly understood. There are also important thermoregulatory characteristics resulting from the high heat increment of fibrous diets, making them more appropriate under colder conditions. The inclusion of fibrous feedstuffs appears to decrease water consumption, and hence urine volume, but increases the production of faeces of high particle size. This may create handling and disposal problems in slurry-based systems of production. There are therefore both positive and negative effects associated with the feeding of bulky diets to pigs.