Effect of Chromium Picolinate Supplementation on Growth Performance and Meat Characteristics of Swine

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of supplemental chromium (Cr) in the form of chromium picolinate (CrPic) on swine growth performance, meat quality, and protein deposition in skeletal muscle. Forty-eight piglets were divided into three groups randomly, fed with three different dietary levels of Cr (common basal feedstuff supplemented with a dose of 1.61μg/g or 3.22μg/g CrPic, which corresponded to 0.2 and 0.4μg/g Cr). Results indicated that during the growing period (1-35days), pigs fed with the diet supplemented with CrPic showed no improvement in body mass, average daily gain (ADG), feed consumption, or feed conversion rate (FCR) (P > 0.05). During the finishing period, a supplementary dose of 0.2μg Cr/g improved daily weight gain significantly (P < 0.05), while the situation had no significance with 0.4μg Cr/g (P > 0.05) supplemented. For the entire growing-finishing period, body mass increased by 3.86%, ADG rose by 6.08%, and the FCR decreased by 3.30%; levels of total muscular pigment and that in the ribeye areas significantly improved (P < 0.05) when supplementation with 0.2μg Cr/g (P < 0.05) was employed. However, there were no significant changes when supplemented with 0.4μg Cr/g. While there were no changes in yield of carcass, back fat, water holding capacity, or levels of muscular crude protein and fat (P > 0.05) in treatment, the ratio of fat-lean and RNA/DNA increased significantly supplemented with 0.2μg Cr/g (P < 0.05), but there were no significance with 0.4μg Cr/g supplementation. In addition, the muscular levels of cholesterol had slightly decreased and the content of DNA in skeletal muscle showed no marked changes with 0.2 or 0.4μg/g Cr supplementation. In conclusion, the present results suggested that dietary Cr supplementation in the dose of 0.2μg/g could promote the growth performance, carcass characteristics, and protein deposition.