Synbiotic Product Effects on Pork Production and Carcass Quality Characteristics in Fattening Pigs

The challenges for both biosafety of products and improvement of the efficiency of livestock farming remain the urgent priorities for the Russian Federation to provide the population with high-quality food products. In this regard, the search for effective and safe feed products capable of solving the problem of increasing the productivity of farm animals is relevant. The investigations were conducted to study the effects of the LactoPig synbiotic feed additive on the parameters for meat productivity and pork quality in fattening pigs. The product represents a combination of natural microbiota isolated from the cecum of industrial pigs and fillers of plant origin. To conduct the experiment, the animals were allocated into four groups. The animals of the first (control) group received a standard diet without any supplements, while the animals of the experimental groups were given the dietary LactoPig synbiotic additive at doses of 0.5, 0.7, and 1.0% of dietary feed weight. The production parameters (survivability, liveweight gain, feed consumption, feed conversion, body condition indices) for animals and the performance indicators for pork production (the preslaughter, slaughter, hot carcass, and visceral fat weights, and the hot and chilled carcass slaughter yields) were analyzed to study the effects of the synbiotic product on the animal organs and meat quality. The use of the LactoPig synbiotic product in the system of rearing the fattening pigs did not have any negative effects on their organism; tolerance was satisfactory. In addition, the increased survival rates, live body weight, liveweight gain, preslaughter weight, and slaughter yields by 2.5–5.0, 2.5–8.9, 3.0–6.7, 2.0–8.2, and 0.6–1.9%, respectively, and the decreased feed costs per unit of production by 1.8–3.4% were observed in the animals of the experimental groups. Pig meat remained safe for consumption as high-quality pork. The best results were observed in the group of animals that received the dietary LactoPig synbiotic product at a dose of 1.0% of compound feed weight.