1021

Asian Australas. J. Anim. Sci. Vol. 26, No. 7 : 1021-1029 July 2013 http://dx.doi.org/10.5713/ajas.2013.13012

www.ajas.info pISSN 1011-2367 eISSN 1976-5517

Effects of Dietary Chromium Methionine on Growth Performance, Carcass Composition, Meat Colour and Expression of the Colour-related Gene Myoglobin of Growing-finishing Pigs Y. S. Li1, N. H. Zhu2,3, P. P. Niu1, F. X. Shi1, C. L. Hughes4, G. X. Tian5, and R. H. Huang1,* 1 College of Animal Science and Technology, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing, 210095, China ABSTRACT: To investigate the effect of dietary chromium (Cr) as Cr methionine (CrMet) on growth performance, carcass traits, pork quality, meat colour and expression of meat colour-related genes in growing-finishing pigs, 189 crossbred Duroc(LandraceYorkshire) growing-finishing pigs (male, castrated, average initial BW 74.581.52 kg) were selected and randomly allocated into four groups. Dietary treatments per kg of feed were as follows: 0 (CT), 0.3 mg/kg (T1), 0.6 mg/kg (T2) and 0.9 mg/kg (T3) Cr (in the form of CrMet; as-fed basis), and each treatment was replicated five times with 8 to 10 pigs per replicate pen. During the 28 d of the experiment, both the ADG and the ADFI increased linearly (p