There has been an increasing interest in recent years in the feeding of high fibre diets to pigs, and especially to pregnant sows, with both economic and welfare advantages. The potential use of these diets will depend upon the extent to which the fibrous materials are fermented and the subsequent capacity of the products of fermentation, that is VFAs, to meet the energy needs of the animal. One ingredient that has considerable potential as a feed ingredient for sows is sugar beet pulp, and the present experiments were designed to study the extent to which diets containing varying proportions of plain sugar beet pulp influenced nutrient partition and the efficiency of nutrient utilisation in pregnant sows.