Performance and nutritional value of hydroponic green barley forage in feeding guinea pig; [Desempenho e valor nutricional da forragem hidropônica de cevada verde na alimentação de porquinhos-da-índia]

Abstract

The objetive of the study was to evaluate the performance an nutritional values of hydroponic green barley forage (HGF) in guinea pig feeding, as well as to compare different feeding systems to determine their effect on growth, feed conversion, mortality, and carcass performance. A completely randomized design and Duncan´s test at 5% were used. One hundred male guinea pigs, aged 14 ± 5 days, were distributed into five treatments (T1: concentrate; T2: HGF; T3: chala; T4: concentrate + HGF; T5: Concentrate + chala), with five repetitions. Body weight, daily weight gain, feed consumption, feed conversion and carcass percentage were evaluated over 68 days. The body weight gain per day in T4 (16.11 g), T1 (15.95 g) and T5 (15.65 g) was significantly higher than that obtained in T2 (5.51 g) and T3 (4.95 g) (p < 0.05). T5 and T4 presented the highest feed consumption on a dry basis (3538.9 and 3239.9 g, respectively; p < 0.05), followed by T1 (2973.4 g). The best feed conversions were presented in T1 (3.81), T4 (4.11) and T5 (4.63), and the guinea pigs from T5 (74.79%), T4 (74.26%), T1 (73.66%) obtained the highest carcass percentages (p < 0.05). In conclusion, the integral and mixed feeding system has a positive influence on the productive parameters. © 2024 Pontificia Universidade Catolica do Parana. All rights reserved.