The Effect of High Environmental Temperature and Nutrient Density on Pig Performance, Conformation and Carcass Characteristics under Restricted Feeding System

Abstract

An experiment was conducted to examine the effect of a high environmental temperature on the performance, conformation, and carcass characteristics of pigs and the influence of diet. Thirty-six three-way crossed castrated male pigs with average initial body weight of 50.4 kg were used in the experiment. The pig were allocated to the following treatments: two environmental temperatures (20 and 30°C)×three dietary energy levels (2,980, 3,300 and 3,600 kcal/kg)×three protein levels (12.8, 15.2 and 17.2%). Daily weight gain was lighter (p<0.01) and feed: gain ratio lower (p<0.05) in pigs at 30°C than for pigs at 20°C. The pigs at 30°C were significantly taller with deeper bodies (p<0.05) and significantly longer (p<0.05) both vertically horizontally in the planum nasal when kept at 30°C. The width of body and the circumference of the neck were greater (p<0.05) at 20°C. The lean meat of the loin, middle section, ham, and hind section were significantly greater (p<0.05) in pigs kept at 30°C and the belly was significantly heavier. The total unsaturated free fatty acids were significantly higher (p<0.05) in the body fat of pigs kept at 20°C than in that of pigs at 30°C. The results indicated that when pigs are given very restricted same amounts of feed, they may need less energy to maintain their body temperature under moderately high environmental temperature (30°C); consequently, their performance is better than that of pigs under optimum environmental temperature. The results showed very clearly that weight gain of pigs increased with increasing of dietary protein and energy content. The increasing of dietary protein content seemed more significant when content increasing to 17.2% compared with the 12.8 and 15.2% protein content treatments. The increasing of dietary energy content was more significant when content increasing to 3,600 compared with the other low energy content treatments.

Effect of crumbled diet on growth performance, market day age and meat quality of growing-finishing pigs

“…Moreover, according to Hsia and Lu (2004), reducing back-fat thickness of live pigs could decrease fat retention in the body, consequently increasing LMA, which could support our results.…”

Influence of essential oil supplementation and diets with different nutrient densities on growth performance, nutrient digestibility, blood characteristics, meat quality and fecal noxious gas content in grower–finisher pigs

“…Therefore, it is possible to postulate that the difference in growth performance response to the different nutrient density may explain the variation on meat quality observed in the current experiment and the two aforementioned experiments. Moreover, Hsia and Lu (2004) also observed reduced backfat thickness of live pigs when pig fed higher energy or protein levels, which may also suggest that the higher nutrient could decrease the fat retention in the body and consequently increase the LMA. …”

Effects of fermented oyster mushroom (Pleurotus ostreats) by-product supplementation on growth performance, blood parameters and meat quality in finishing Berkshire pigs

“…SFA/USFA was significantly higher (P , 0.05) in C than other treatments. Some researchers have reported that fatty acid composition of meat could be improved by the diet (French et al, 2000;Hsia and Lu, 2004;Nuernberg et al, 2005). Suzuki et al (2003) reported that in general, SFAs of meat are palmitic acid and stearic acid in Berkshire, and USFAs are oleic and linoleic acid.…”