Growth Performance, Carcass and Pork Quality Traits of Growing-Finishing Pigs with High and Low Breeding Values for Residual Feed Intake Fed Diets with Macauba (Acrocomia aculeata) Pulp as Alternative Raw Material
, Renata Veroneze 1, Alysson Saraiva 1, Marcio de S. Duarte 2, Simone E. F. Guimaraes 1, Marcos S. Lopes 3, John W. M. Bastiaansen 4, Gabryele A. Santos 1, Lorena D. Campos 1 and Paulo H. R. F. Campos 1,*
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The manuscript investigated the effects of dietary macauba pulp on growth performance, carcass traits, and pork traits of growing-finishing pigs (30 – 150 kg BW) with high and low breeding values for residual feed intake. The topic of this study is of interest, and the general methodology well-applied. In this study, macauba pulp (Acrocomia aculeata) showed great potential as alternative feedstuff (up to 50g/kg) in pigs' diets. However, there are some questions/comments that need to be addressed before potential publishing.
1. There are some wrong formats, e.g., ‘6 h’ (Line 31), ‘50 g/kg’ (Line 38). Please double check and correct any grammatical errors in the manuscript.
2. There are some grammatical errors, e.g., ‘a high amount of’ (Line 48), ‘rainforests’ (Line 38). Please double check and correct any grammatical errors in the manuscript.
3. Please cite the references correctly, Line 62 and Line 70.
4. Agriculture requires that authors must provide full experimental details. However，after reading the experimental design, I cannot find all necessary information regarding the groups and duplicates.
5. Why the study was carried out in two batches
6. I strongly recommend using ‘NaCl’ instead of ‘Salt’ in Table 1
7. Why the author utilized different crude protein levels between the two groups in the G2, F1, and F3 phases? Did the protein level affect the results?
8. Table 3: average daily feed intake
9. Figure 1A: Barrows
10. The experimental units are different in table 3 and table 4.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The topic could be shorter, more crisp and more punchy. The introduction a bit too short and lacks background information to justify some elements of the objective such as breeding values. This appears for the first time in the objective statement. While the methods are generally well described, authors failed to justify their choices in many instances. For example, it is not clear why and how animals were pair-housed. It is also not clear why 50g/kg of macauba pulp was used because previous studies indicated that 100g/kg did influence growth perfomance and body composition. Another study included 103g/kg and produced more positive results. So, the choice of 50g/kg was not sufficiently justified. Description of data analysis does not include any repeated measures in the GLM, yet results as shown in figure1 on carcass pH and temperature gives an impression that time (from 15min to 24hrs).
Specific comments:
L20: "......(30-150 kg, BW) is too wide a range. Although I understand that it includes animal weights at the begining of the trial and at the end, maybe to solution might to be specify BW at the beginning of growing and at finishing.
L51: Which one between the two is 6200? it is not clear. I also feel that the word respectively is being abused twice in L52.
L53: Sort out referening error there.
L59 to L60: "Thus co-products...............emerged as potential raw materials...."
L62: Sort out citing error.
L70: Sort out reference error there!
L73: Breeding values appears in the last sentence of the introduction for the first time = leaving a reader with unanswered questions about what is this and why is it important in this study.
L118: A number of things need to be fixed in Table 1. The units (g/kg) next to "ingredients" does not make sense since other ingredients have"%" next to them such as CP, Lysine, Ca and Total P. Maybe, just add units next to each ingredient and remove it from the first row. Just like you did in Table 3. The amount "5.00" given against Macauba does not make sense to me. I thought that 50g/kg was included in the diet.
L241: Explain or describe RMSE at the bottom of the table. I guess it is Root Mean Square Error. This is applicable to tables 3, 4 and 5.
L267: Figure 1 gives an impression that you tested for effects of time among other factors but the description of data analysis did not include that information.
L271: Figure 1 is repeated here. Correct it.
L283: "Breeding values: Boars were...." It might be misleading to say that you classified boars, because you only worked with barrows and gilts. My understanding is that the study animals are progeny of boars that had either low or high breeding values for residual feed intake.
L415: "....up to 50g/kg.....)..." but this is the only inclusion level used against control in this study. Let is not sound as if you have various levels upto 50g/kg.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
The manuscript entitled "Growth Performance, Carcass and Pork Quality Traits of Growing-Finishing Pigs with High and Low Breeding Values for Residual Feed Intake fed diets with Macauba (Acrocomia aculeata) pulp as alternative raw material" is well written but there are minor formatting corrections to be made with the in text referencing. However, the major issue with this paper has to do with its novelty. The objectives of this paper are similar to those reported in literature: Dias, E.F., Hauschild, L., Moreira, V.E., Caetano, R.P., Veira, A.M., Lopes, M.S., Guimarães, S.E.F., Bastiaansen, J. and Campos, P.H.R.F., 2021. Macauba (Acrocomia aculeata) pulp meal as alternative raw material for growing-pigs. Livestock Science, 252, p.104675. In my humble opinion, the exact same experiment was performed. The author needs to clear show its novelty.
Minor issues:
The manuscript has over 80 references, this should be revised to be more concise. On average a research document should have <60 references (within reason).
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 3 Report
The author has accurately expressed the novelty of his work. Also, he has provided transparent information showing that the experiment was not a repeat of earlier published work. The manuscript can be published as is.
