Histidine Requirement of Baby Pigs

Abstract

Three experiments involving a total of 32 pigs were conducted to study the histidine requirement of baby pigs. The first experiment showed that a simulated “milk-diet” used in earlier studies of the leucine requirement of suckling pigs was not low enough in histidine to be useful in studying the histidine requirement of the young pig. In two experiments baby pigs were fed a semi-purified, dry diet compounded to provide 10% fat, 2% fiber and two different levels of protein, namely 16% and 20%. The dietary nitrogen was supplied by dried whey, amino acids and diammonium citrate. The data indicate that the optimum level is approximately 0.2% of L-histidine in a 16% protein ration. This requirement is equivalent to 1.2% of the dietary protein.