The study was conducted to determine performance efficiency and diarrhea incidence of eighteen (18) post-weaning piglets supplemented with different levels of pulverized oyster mushroom (POM) in diet for 35 days. The study was laid out in a randomized control block design with three (3) treatments containing six (6) replicates with one (1) piglet per replicate. T1 served as control with 0% POM supplementation; T was supplemented with 1% (10 grams POM/kg feed) POM and T3 was supplemented with 3% (30 grams POM/kg feed) POM Results showed no significant differences in the mean weights among the treatments on days 28, 35, 42, 49, 56 and 63 Treatment 3 showed better performance against Treatments 1 and 2 in terms of gain in weight, average daily gain (ADG) and feed conversion ratio (FCR) (p<0.05), whereas, no differences were observed between Treatments 1 and 2 in terms of gain in weight, ADG and FCR. Treatments 2 and 3 showed significant reduction of diarrhea incidence during the second week of experiment compared to the control group. At third week, only the control group exhibited diarrhea incident Treatments supplemented with pulverized oyster mushroom had higher percentage of having normal stool consistency with the scores ranging from 1 to 2 compared to the control group. In terms of profitability, Treatments 2 and 3 have greater net of sales with P766.2 and P1,589. 72 respectively, then Treatment 1 with P627.43. In conclusion, supplementation of 3% pulverized oyster mushroom on the diets positively affects the growth performance, diarrhea incidence, stool consistency and profitability. We recommend to the future researchers to extend supplementation until the third week of the experiment. Further, we recommend that a multiple dose experiment will be performed to see the accuracy of pulverized oyster mushroom being dose dependent. Finally, researchers should have separate study for the mycelium and fruiting body of the mushrooms to be able to identify which part has the greatest contribution on the growth performance and diarrhea incidence reduction.

Thesis (Doctor of Veterinary Medicine)

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