Effect of lecithin with or without chitooligosaccharide on the growth performance, nutrient digestibility, blood metabolites and pork quality of finishing pigs

Abstract

Two experiments were conducted to evaluate the effect of dietary lecithin with or without chitooligosaccharide (COS) on the performance, blood metabolites, pork cholesterol, fatty acid composition and quality of finishing pigs. In exp. 1, 36 pigs (Landrace × Yorkshire × Duroc, 84.5 ± 0.60 kg initial body weight) were fed lecithin at 0, 2.5 or 5.0% of the diet. Lecithin improved average daily gain (16%) and feed conversion ratio, and did not affect apparent nutrient digestibility. On day 28, lecithin decreased serum total and low density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol (34 and 77%, P = 0.016), and increased serum triglyceride (P = 0.048). Lecithin did not affect carcass characteristics and pork quality, but increased myristic and α-linolenic acid and reduced palmitoleic acid in pork. Experiment 2 involved 108 pigs (85.0 ± 0.76 kg initial body weight) in a 2 × 2 factorial arrangement of treatments, wherein two levels of lecithin (low, 2.5 and high, 5.0%) and COS (0.0 and 0.1%) were used. Addition of COS in diets containing lecithin reduced pork cholesterol (16.4%) and oleic acid (28.3%), and did not affect performance, nutrient digestibility, blood metabolites and pork quality. In conclusion, these results suggest that lecithin improved the growth performance of finishing pigs and inclusion of COS reduced the amount of cholesterol in pork. Key words: Lecithin, COS, performance, nutrient digestibility, pork quality