Effect of probiotic supplemention on the performance and quality characteristics of meat from finishing pigs

This study was conducted to. determine the effects of dietary supplementation with probiotics on the growth and meat quality of finishing pigs. A total of forty eight (Landrace x Yorkshire x Duroc) pigs (55.3 +/- 1.5 kg average initial body weight) were randomly assigned to four groups and fed on a diet supplemented with 0, 0.2, 0.5 or 1% probiotics for 58 days. The pigs were slaughtered at approximately 105 kg live weight. Supplementation with 0.2% probiotics significantly (P<0.05) increased daily gain compared to the control. The daily gain of pigs in the 0.2% probiotic group was 0.95 kg whereas that of the control was 0.85 kg. The average feed intake was 2.79-2.84 kg and there were no significant differences in feed intake between the control and test groups. The feed conversion of the 0.2% probiotic group was 2.96 kg whereas the control showed a feed conversion of 3.28 kg. The results of this stud), imply that Supplementation with 0.2% probiotics rnay improve the feed conversion of pigs. There were significant differences in carcass weight, carcass ratio, backfat thickness, and frequency percentage of A grade carcasses between the control and probiotic test groups. In addition, the moisture, crude protein and crude ash contents of the probiotic treated groups did not differ significantly from the control group, however the crude fat values of the 0.2% probiotic test group was significantly lower than the other groups. The muscle pH levels of all samples ranged from 5.63-5.67 which is the normal pH of pork. The supplementation of probiotics resulted in decreased lightness (L*) values and increased redness (a*) values. Furthermore, the saturated fatty acid contents of the 0.2% and 0.5% probiotic test groups decreased and the unsaturated fatty acid contents increased relative to the control.