The effects of dietary herbs and coral mineral complexon growth performance, nutrient digestibility, bloodcharacteristics and meat quality in finishing pigs

TL;DRAbstract

Eighty crossbred pigs of initial mean body weight 58 kg were used to evaluate the effect of supplemental herbs and coral mineral complex (HC) on growth performance, nutrient digestibility, blood characteristics and meat quality in a 8 weeks growth trial. Pigs were randomly allocated to 4 treatments, which comprised: 1. control, 2. HC 0.05%, 3. HC 0.1%, and 4. HC 0.2%, respectively (4 pigs/pen, 5 replicates/treatment). Gain/feed linearly increased during week 4-8 (P<0.05) and overall period (P<0.10) with increasing HC level. Digestibility of DM and N during week 0-4 increased linearly with an increasing HC level (P<0.005). Serum IgG concentrations linearly increased with the increase of HC supplementation (P<0.01). Cortisol concentrations tended (P<0.10) to decrease linearly with increasing level of HC. The linear reduction of subjective scores for marbling (P<0.01) and firmness (P<0.01) of the longissimus muscle were observed. In conclusion, supplementation of HC improved feed efficien

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