Colostral milk fat percentage and pig performance are enhanced by feeding the leucine metabolite beta-hydroxy-beta-methyl butyrate to sows

Three trials were conducted to test whether feeding the leucine metabolite beta-hydroxy-beta-methyl butyrate (HMB) would increase fat content of sows' milk and pig weight gain. All sows received a basal diet and were assigned at random to receive either 2 g of CaCO3/d (control) or 2 g of Ca(HMB)2/d (HMB), which was top-dressed to the basal diet. Treatment began 3 to 4 d before farrowing. In Trials 1, 2, and 3 there were 4, 19, and 11 pairs of sows, respectively. In a combined analysis that included all three trials, milk fat at d 1 was increased by 41% (P =.01) and pig weight at d 21 was increased by 7% (P =.01) for sows fed diets containing HMB compared with sows fed control diets. Sows fed HMB lost more backfat (P =.03); however, sows receiving HMB had more (P