Effect of a dietary probiotic blend on performance, blood characteristics, meat quality and faecal microbial shedding in growing-finishing pigs

Abstract

The current study aimed to evaluate the effect of a dietary probiotic blend on growth performance, blood characteristics, meat quality, and faecal microbial population in growing-finishing pigs in a 12-week experiment. Pigs were assigned to two dietary treatments: a control basal-diet without probiotic blend (NoPro) and a test-diet including the probiotic blend (Pro) according to pig bodyweight (BW) at the dose of 100 mg/kg of BW. Pigs fed the probiotics had higher final BW and increased average daily gain (ADG), as well as improved feed conversion ratio (FCR). Blood parameters of pigs were not affected by dietary probiotic complex. Meat crude protein and polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) contents were increased in the group fed probiotics, whereas there were no significant differences in the other meat traits. Feeding of probiotics determined a decrease in faecal NH 3 -N (+15.5%) and butyric acid concentrations, whereas no effects were observed on faecal acetic acid and propionic acid. An increased faecal Lactobacillus concentration was found when pigs fed probiotic blend. Based on our findings, feeding probiotic blend enhanced growth performance and meat quality in growing-finishing pigs, and also decreased faecal NH 3 -N and butyric acid levels resulting in a viable approach to reduce animal excreta pollution.

Impact of restricting feed and probiotic supplementation on growth performance, mortality and carcass traits of meat‐type quails

“…Natural feed additives including probiotics are effective alternatives to drugs and antibiotics due to their growth promoting properties in livestock species (Tufarelli, Crovace, Rossi, & Laudadio, ; Wang et al, ; Yatoo et al, ; Zorriehzahra et al, ). Probiotics improve the activity of beneficial bacteria in the gut, and animal performance (Abd El‐Hack, Mahgoub, Alagawany, & Ashour, ; Alagawany, Abd El‐Hack, Arif, & Ashour, ; Alagawany et al, ).…”

“…Natural feed additives including probiotics are effective alternatives to drugs and antibiotics due to their growth promoting properties in livestock species (Tufarelli, Crovace, Rossi, & Laudadio, 2017;Wang et al, 2018;Yatoo et al, 2017;Zorriehzahra et al, 2016).…”

Feeding of dried sweet orange (Citrus sinensis) peel on humoral immune response of broiler chickens

“…The use of growth promoters has resulted in a high rate of broiler production in recent years. At present, this trend has been changing due to the increase of production and concerns with environmental safety and public health (Gibson and Roberfroid 1995;Tufarelli et al 2017).…”

Influences of Enzyme Blend Supplementation on Growth Performance, Nutrient Digestibility, Fecal Microbiota and Meat-Quality in Grower-Finisher Pigs

“…An upsurge in introducing more microbiota in order to enhance digestibility and health conditions of the gut has been discussed previously [11]. A relation was also observed between the digestibility and gut health with fecal noxious gas content [7,[26][27][28] because increased digestibility may allow less substrate for the microbial fermentation in the large intestine, which consequently decreases the fecal noxious gas content. Similarly, inclusion of dietary enzyme blend led to lower fecal NH 3 (p = 0.033) content when compared to control diet at end of the experiment without differences on H 2 S and total mercaptans (Table 4).…”