Dietary β-glucan supplementation improves growth performance, carcass traits and meat quality of finishing pigs

Abstract

This experiment was conducted to investigate growth performance, carcass traits and meat quality of finishing pigs with dietary β-glucan supplementation. A total of 96 healthy pigs (Duroc × Landrace × Yorkshire; initial average BW = 25 kg) were randomly allocated into 4 dietary treatments with 6 replicates per treatment and 4 pigs per replicate. The control group was fed a basal diet, and the experimental diets were supplemented with 50, 100 and 200 mg/kg Agrobacterium sp. ZX09 β-glucan, respectively. The experiment lasted 103 d. The basal diet supplemented with 100 mg/kg β-glucan significantly increased average daily gain and feed conversion ratio, probably due to the improved digestibility of dry matter, gross energy and crude protein (P < 0.05). Beta-glucan supplementation from 100 to 200 mg/kg of diet significantly increased carcass length (P < 0.05). The basal diet supplemented with 100 mg/kg β-glucan supplementation also significantly (P < 0.05) increased muscle pH, reduced drip losses and increased a∗ values. The basal diet supplemented with 100 mg/kg β-glucan increased the content of intramuscular fat and changed the proportion of saturated fatty acid and unsaturated fatty acid, thereby improved the flavor of meat. In conclusion, the basal diet supplemented with 100 mg/kg Agrobacterium sp. ZX09 β-glucan improves growth performance, nutrient digestibility, carcass length, and pork quality of finishing pigs.

Effects of Dietary Protein Levels on Growth Performance, Carcass Traits, Serum Metabolites, and Meat Composition of Tibetan Sheep during the Cold Season on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau

“…In recent years, carcass traits are crucial indices reflecting livestock production in animal husbandry [27][28][29]. Francisco et al [30] showed that the live BW and diet composition were two main factors associated with carcass traits, and these observations were also found in our study.…”

“…Furthermore, Cortese et al [31] reported that the carcass yield of Charolais bulls was not affected by increased dietary protein levels. Luo et al [28] also showed that there were no differences in backfat thickness and carcass yield in fattening pigs fed with different levels of β-glucan supplementation. The above results were consistent with the results of this study.…”

Efficacy of Glucans on Growth Variables, Antioxidant Potential, and Immunity of Growing Rabbits

“…In broiler, Soliman et al (2014) found that the addition of different levels of mannan and β-Glucan as a prebiotic to broilers diets contaminated with aflatoxin might be reduced the effects of aflatoxin toxicity on body weight. In pigsBG has a considerable effect on fishing pig growth, according to Luo et al (2019). At the early stage and throughout the fattening period, the supplementation of 100 mg/kg BG considerably boosted the daily gain and improved the feed to gain relative amount.…”

“…In earlier researches, BG supplementation in the feed has been shown to improve poultry growth and immunity (Soliman et al, 2014;Tian et al, 2016), pigs (Wang et al, 2008;Luo et al, 2019), rats (Belobrajdic et al, 2015), cattle calves (Tao et al 2015), fish (Cao et al, 2019;Dawood et al, 2020), rabbits (García-Ruiz et al, 2008;Abo Ghanima et al, 2020). Contrary, Supplementing rabbit diets with yeast-glucans has no effect on growth or digestibility (Guenaoui, 2015).…”

Effects of Selenium Auricularia cornea Culture Supplementation on Growth Performance, Antioxidant Status, Tissue Selenium Concentration and Meat Quality in Growing-Finishing Pigs

“…The mushrooms' β-glucan contents ranged from 0.21% to 0.53% (dry weight basis) [35]. As Luo et al (2019) [36] indicated, β-glucan was a sort of functional polysaccharide that widely existed in the cell wall of fungi and possessed many biological activities. Previous studies showed that pigs fed β-glucan diets might enhance growth performance, which was probably due to the intestinal improvement, as β-glucan could modulate intestinal structure and morphology [30,37,38].…”