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 arrangement. 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×Y×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, backf.at thickness and loin muscle area with increasing dietary astaxanthin level. There were no significant effects (p>0.05) 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.
This study was carried out to assess whether feeding of alcohol-fermented feeds (AFF) affects the nutritional metabolism and growth characteristics of Korean native steers. Ten steers were randomly assigned to one of two treatment groups. The dietary treatments were AFF (50% commercial beef cattle feed+30% alcohol-fermented soybean curd dregs+20% rice straw) and control (80% commercial beef cattle feed+20% rice straw). The change of serum metabolites and growth characteristics were measured every two months during the whole twelve months experimental period and the relationships between serum metabolites and growth characteristics were simultaneously analyzed. Four hours after feeding AFF, serum alcohol concentration reached its peak with a significantly higher value than that after control feeding (11.9 and 4.9 mg/dl, respectively). Serum glucose and inorganic phosphorus (IP) concentrations (63.1 and 8.4 mg/dl, respectively) of steers fed AFF were higher than those (56.6 and 7.0 mg/dl) fed the control diet. In both treatments, the serum glucose concentration rapidly increased when body weight (BW) of the steer reached about 600kg, while IP concentrations were rapidly diminished at that BW. Lower concentrations of both blood urea nitrogen (BUN) and cholesterol were observed in steers fed AFF up to 450 kg of BW. The IP concentration was correlated with concentrations of BUN, cholesterol and glucose in AFF fed cattle but not in the cattle fed control diets. Average daily gain was higher in steers fed AFF than steers fed control, particularly during the growing stage of cattle. These findings indicated a capability of AFF to improve BW gain of Korean native steers by decreased protein degradation as well as increased fat synthesis.
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