Abstract
Pig production (Sus scrofa domesticus) amongst smallholder farmers is constrained by poor growth performances in terms of feed intake (FI), weight gain (WG) and feed conversion ratio (FCR) and, high proportion of carcass back-fat thickness to lean meat. This study investigated the effect of floor types on growth performance of pigs and carcass back-fat thickness of pigs raised on IMO treated deep litter floor, untreated deep litter floor and concrete floor. Twenty four three-month old pigs (Large White x Landrace) were raised on deep litter floor and concrete floor (control); one type of deep litter floor was treated with IMO solution and one type not treated. No significant (P?0.05) difference were observed in feed conversion ratio (FCR), carcass back-fat thickness at the back from the 15 th rib to the last Lumbar vertebrae, at gluteus medius muscle and the thigh of pigs raised on both concrete floor, IMO treated and untreated deep litter floor. However, significant (P??0.05) difference were observed in feed intake (FI), weight gain (WG), carcass back-fat thickness in the neck at 1 st cervical vertebrae, over the shoulder and at the back from the 6 th to the 14 th rib of pigs raised on concrete floor, IMO treated and untreated deep litter floor. Therefore, IMO 2 treatment of deep litter floor does not affect feed conversion ratio rather enhanced weight gain and reduce back-fat thickness in pigs.
Conflict of Interest
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
Ethical Approval
Not applicable
Data Availability
The datasets used in this study are openly available at [repository link] and the source code is available on GitHub at [GitHub link].
Funding
This work did not receive any external funding.
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