Meat Quality Of Pigs Fed Diets Supplemented With High Level Magnesium Aspartate And Calcium Chloride For Short Time

Sixty crossbred (Durock X large white X landrace) pigs with average body weight of 95kg were used to study the effect of magnesium aspatate (MgAsp) and calcium chloride supplementations in the basal diet (13.44 MJ DE/kg, 13.19%CP) for 7 days prior to slaughter on the meat quality of pigs . 3X3 factorial design with three levels of magnesium aspatate (1500,2500 and 3500ppm of Mg content) and three levels of calcium chloride (0, 1.5% and 3%) supplementations was employed to study the effect of magnesium and /or calcium on the meat quality of pigs. Another group with neither magnesium aspartate nor calcium calcium supplementation was used as control. At the beginning of experiment, 60 pigs were assigned randomly into the ten groups. 4 pigs from each treatment were slaughtered at the end of experiment for carcass and meat quality examination.The results showed that:(1) Dietary MgAsp supplementation improved the pork quality .Pigs fed theMgAsp significantly increased serum and longissimus thoracis(LT) magnesium levels compared with pigs fed the control diet (pO.Ol). pH value in the LT muscle at 40 min and 24h after slaughter was significantly raised (p<0.05). Pigs fed the MgAsp-supplemented diet had lower percentage of drip loss and higher color score than pigs fed the control diet (p<0.05). There were no significant difference in dressing rate, lean percentage, backfat thickness, eye muscle thickness and collagenr. content regardless of MgAsp supplementation or not (p>0.05). The result ofregression analysis indicated that supplementation of Mg at dose of 2500 to 3200mg/kg could resulted in the optimal meat pH value ,meat color and drip loss The corresponding Mg contents in serum and LT muscle were about 0.9mmol/L and 241mg/kg respectively.(2)Pigs fed the calcium-chloride-supplemented and the control diets for 7days pre-slaughter had similar pH value, meat color scored, drip loss percentage, dressing rate, lean percentage, backfat thickness, eye muscle thickness and collagen content. Calcium chloride supplementation led to a significant increase of Ca-lcium(Ca) content in serum and longissimus thoracis(LT) muscle (p<0.01).(3) There were no interactions of magnesium aspartate and calcium chloride supplementation on meat quality.The results indicate that the dietary supplementation of magnesium aspartate for 7 days pre-slaughrer can improve pork quality, while calcium chloride supplementation can increase the contents of Ca in serum and longissimus thoracis(LT) muscle.