Journal of Animal Science and Technology
Korean Society of Animal Science and Technology
Article

The effects of synbiotics-glyconutrients on growth performance, nutrient digestibility, gas emission, meat quality, and fatty acid profile of finishing pigs

Olivier Munezero, Sungbo Cho, In Ho Kim*
1Dankook University, Cheonan 31116, Korea.
*Corresponding Author: In Ho Kim, Phone: 82-41-550-3652 . E-mail: inhokim@dankook.ac.kr.

© Copyright 2023 Korean Society of Animal Science and Technology. This is an Open-Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Received: Jan 25, 2023; Revised: Mar 07, 2023; Accepted: Jun 04, 2023

Published Online: Jun 08, 2023

Abstract

Glyconutrients help in the body's cell communication. Glyconutrients and synbiotics are promising options for improving immune function. Therefore, we hypothesized that combining synbiotics and glyconutrients will enhance pig nutrient utilization. 150 pigs (Landrace × Yorkshire × Duroc), initially weighing 58.85±3.30 kg of live body weight (BW) were utilized to determine the effects of synbiotics-glyconutrients (SGN) on the pigs’ performance, feed efficiency, gas emission, pork traits, and composition of fatty acids. The pigs were matched by BW and sex and chosen at random to 1 of 3 diet treatments: control = Basal diet; TRT1 = Basal diet + SGN 0.15%; TRT2 = Basal diet + SGN 0.30%%. The trials were conducted in two phases (weeks 1 - 5 and weeks 5 - 10). The average daily gain was increased in pigs fed a basal diet with SGN (<italic>p</italic> = 0.036) in weeks 5-10. However, the apparent total tract digestibility of dry matter, nitrogen, and gross energy did not differ among the treatments (<italic>p</italic>&gt;0.05).  Dietary treatments had no effect on NH<sub>3</sub>, H<sub>2</sub>S, methyl mercaptans, acetic acids, and CO<sub>2</sub> emissions (<italic>p</italic>&gt;0.05). Improvement in drip loss on day 7 (<italic>p</italic>=0.053) and tendency in the cooking loss were observed (<italic>p</italic>=0.070) in a group fed basal diets and SGN at 0.30% inclusion level. The group supplemented with 0.30% of SGN had higher levels of palmitoleic acid (C16:1), margaric acid (C17:0), omega-3 fatty acid, omega-6 fatty acid, and ω-6: ω-3 ratio (<italic>p</italic>= 0.034, 0.020, 0.025, 0.007, and 0.003, respectively) in the fat of finishing pigs. Furthermore, group supplemented with 0.30% of SGN improved margaric acid (C17:0), linoleic acid (C18:2n6c), arachidic acid (C20:0), omega 6 fatty acid, omega-6 to omega-3 ratio, unsaturated fatty acid, and monounsaturated fatty acid (<italic>p</italic>=0.037, 0.05, 0.0142, 0.036, 0.033, 0.020, and 0.045, respectively) in the lean tissues of finishing pigs compared to pigs fed with the control diets. In conclusion, the combination of probiotics, prebiotics, and glyconutrients led to higher average daily gain, improved the quality of pork, and more favorable fatty acid composition. Therefore, these results contributed to a better understanding of the potential of synbiotic-glyconutrient combinations as a feed additive for pigs.

Keywords: finishing pigs; glyconutrient; performance; prebiotic; probiotic