Feeding reduced crude protein diets with crystalline amino acids supplementation reduce air gas emissions from housing.

The objective of this study was to test the hypothesis that reducing dietary CP by 1.5% and supplementing crystalline AA (CAA) to meet the standardized ileal digestible (SID) AA requirements for growing and finishing pigs decreases air emissions of ammonia (NH), nitrous oxide (NO), and carbon dioxide (CO) compared with an industry standard diet, without reducing growth performance. Seventy-two pigs were allocated to 12 rooms (6 pigs per room) and 2 diets (6 rooms per diet) formulated according to a 5-phase feeding program across the grow-finish period (107 d total). The diets consisted of a standard diet containing 18.5 to 12.2% CP or a reduced CP diet containing 17.5 to 11.0% CP + CAA over the course of the 5-phase feeding program. Gases (NH, NO, hydrogen sulfide, methane, nonmethane total hydrocarbon, and CO) and ventilation rates were measured continuously from the rooms. Compared with standard diet, ADG and feed conversion of pigs fed reduced CP + CAA diets did not differ (2.7 kg gain/d and 0.37 kg gain/kg feed, respectively). Compared with standard diet, feeding reduced CP + CAA diets decreased ( < 0.01) NH emissions by 46% over the 107-d period (5.4 and 2.9 g · pig · d, respectively). Change in NH emissions for each percentage unit reduction in dietary CP concentration corresponded with 47.9, 53.2, 26.8, 26.5, and 51.6% during Phases 1 through 5, respectively. Emissions of other gases did not differ between diets. Feeding reduced CP diets formulated based on SID AA requirements for grow-finisher swine is effective in reducing NH emissions from housing compared with recent industry formulations and does not impact growth performances.