A study was carried out at the Department of Animal Science, of the Universidade Federal de Santa Maria in order to evaluate the effects of three shapes of ration in the performance of weaning pigs (28 days) up to 70 days. The treatments were middlings (T1), pellets (T2) and ground ration (T3). The experimental was performed using a completely randomized design, in a factorial experiment 3 x 2, with 4 replicates of one animal each. The analyses of variance did not show significant differences (P ≥ 0,05) for the ration consumption and weight gain measurements. The food conversion in the T2 was better than that observed in the T1 (P < 0.05). The results show that feeding with pelleted ration at the beginning of the pig's growth (28 to 70 days) improves the food conversion and decreases the live weight production costs, when compared with middlings.
ground; middlings; pellets; performance; weaning pigs
