Spray dried plasma protein (SDPP) has been used as a replacement for expensive milk based ingredients in starter diets in the US over the past few years. The objective of this trial was to assess dried blood products as a replacement for dried milk products and fish meal in diets fed to pigs for four weeks after weaning.

Thirty six mixed sex groups of 16 pigs, weaned at 22-28 days of age and weighing 7.6 (s.e. 0.1) kg, were used in this trial in a factorial design of two starter diets (control and 10% SDPP (AP920) - American Protein Corp., Ames, Iowa) for 14 days from weaning, followed by two link diets (control and 2.5% spray dried blood cells - SDBC (AP301)) for 12 days. Composition of diets is shown in Table 1. All pigs received a common weaner diet from day 26 to day 49 (34 kg liveweight approx).