Effects of dietary supplementation of astaxanthin on production performance, egg quality in layers and meat quality in finishing pigs

Two experiments were conducted separately to study the effect of astaxanthin on production performance and egg quality in laying hens and meat quality in finishing pigs. In Experiment 1, four hundred Brown Hy-Line layers, 26 weeks of age, were randomly divided into five treatments according to a single factorial arrangernent. Each treatment had four-replicates comprising 20 birds each. The dietary treatments were: 0, 0.7, 0.9, 1.1 and 1.3 ppm of astaxanthin fed for 14 days. Then all the birds were fed an astaxanthin-free diet (0 ppm astaxanthin) for an additional 7 days. The results showed that dietary astaxanthin had no significant effect on layer production performance. There was no significant effect (p > 0.05) on egg weight, yolk height and Haugh unit (HU) with increasing dietary astaxanthin level and increased storage time. Yolk color was linearly increased (p < 0.01) with the increasing dietary astaxanthin level and significantly decreased with the increasing storage time (p < 0.05). The TBARS value in yolk decreased linearly (p < 0.05) with increasing amount of dietary astaxanthin and storage time. When the diets were replaced with the astaxanthin-free feeds, all parameters concerning egg quality decreased with increasing days of measurement, especially the yolk color, and HU significantly decreased (p < 0.05). In experiment 2, thirty-six barrows (L x Y x D), 107 +/- 3.1 kg BW, were randomly divided into three treatments according to a single factorial arrangement. Each treatment had three replicates comprising 4 pigs each. The dietary treatments were: 0, 1.5 and 3.0 ppm of astaxanthin fed for 14 days. The results showed that dietary astaxanthin had no significant effects on production performance. There was a linear effect (p < 0.05) on dressing percentage, backfat thickness and loin muscle area with increasing dietary astaxanthin level. There were no significant effects (p > .05) on the TBARS value, drip loss, meat color, marbling and L*, a*, b* values. Cholesterol concentration in meat was not affected by dietary addition of astaxanthin. It could be concluded that astaxanthin supplementation was beneficial to improve egg yolk color; egg quality during storage and it also could improve the meat quality of finishing pigs.