Effect of Green Tea Probiotics on the Growth Performance, Meat Quality and Immune Response in Finishing Pigs

The objective of this study was to determine the effects of green tea probiotics on growth performance, meat quality and immune response in finishing pigs, and to assess the possibility of substituting green tea probiotics for antibiotics in diets of finishing pigs. This green tea probiotics is made by mixing green tea powder and excipients (defatted rice bran and wheat bran) and fermenting the mixture with beneficial bacteria. A total of 90 crossbreed "Landrace$\times$Yorkshire" finishing pigs with an average body weight of $72.5{\pm}2.5kg$ were assigned to 5 dietary treatments in a completely randomized design. Each treatment had 3 replications with 6 pigs per replication. The five dietary treatments were control, antibiotic (0.003% chlortetracycline added) and 0.1, 0.5 and 1.0% of green tea probiotics. There were no significant differences in final body weight, daily weight gain, daily feed intake and feed conversion ratio in the green tea probiotics and antibiotic treatments (p>0.05). Crude protein content was significantly increased in the 0.1 and 1.0% green tea probiotics treatment groups (p<0.05) and there was no significant difference in crude fat content of the meat among the treatments. The TBA value of meat was significantly lowered with 0.5 and 1.0% green tea probiotics treatments compared to that of controls and statistically similar to the antibiotic treatment after 3 weeks of storage (p<0.05). The growth of spleen cells stimulated with Con A (0.1 and $1.0{\mu}g/ml$) was significantly increased with 1.0% green tea probiotics treatment compared to that of the control treatment (p<0.05). The growth of spleen cells stimulated with LPS (1.0, 3.0 and $10{\mu}g/ml$) was significantly increased in the 0.5% green tea probiotics group compared to the antibiotic group (p<0.05). In Con A ($1.0{\mu}g/ml$) medium, IL-6 production of spleen cells was significantly increased with 1.0% green tea probiotics treatment compared to that of the control (p<0.05). In LPS ($10.0{\mu}g/ml$) medium, TNF-${\alpha}$ production of spleen cells increased significantly in all green tea probiotics treatment groups compared to that of the control (p<0.05). Finally it can be summarized that addition of green tea probiotic has a positive effect similar to antibiotic and 0.5% is the suitable dietary supplementation dose for finishing pig production.