Bioefficacy of Lysine from L-lysine Sulfate and L-lysine⋅HCl for 10 to 20 kg Pigs

The objective of this study was to compare the bioefficacy of L-lysine sulfate relative to L-lysine·HCl for 10 to 20 kg pigs. Two experiments were conducted to determine the bioefficacy of the two sources of lysine using daily gain, feed conversion, plasma urea nitrogen and nitrogen retention as the response criteria. In experiment 1, 168 crossbred barrows (Landrace×Large White), weaned at 28±3 d (9.07±0.78 kg body weight), were allotted to one of seven dietary treatments in a 2x3 (two lysine sourcesxthree lysine levels) factorial arrangement of treatments with an added negative control treatment group. The basal diet was based on corn, peanut meal and soybean meal and provided 0.67% lysine. The basal diet was supplemented with 0.1, 0.2 or 0.3% lysine equivalents supplied from either L-lysine sulfate or L-lysine·HCl. Each treatment was fed to six pens of pigs with four pigs per pen. The trial lasted 21 days. The relative bioefficacy value of lysine in L-lysine sulfate using daily gain, feed conversion and plasma urea nitrogen as response criteria was 1.01, 1.05 and 1.04 of the lysine in L-lysine·HCl, respectively. In experiment 2, 42 crossbred (Landrace×Large White) pigs (16.03±1.58 kg body weight) were housed in stainless steel metabolism cages for 10 d and fed the seven diets used in the nitrogen-balance trial. The relative bioefficacy value of L-lysine sulfate was estimated to be 0.95 as effective as L-lysine·HCl for nitrogen retention on an equimolar basis. The t-test analysis revealed that bioefficacy of lysine in L-lysine sulfate was not significantly different from lysine in L-lysine·HCl, which was set at 1.00. In conclusion, L-lysine sulfate can be used instead of L-lysine -HCl to fortify lysine-deficient diets fed to 10 to 20 kg pigs.