Management and Nutritional Approaches to Reducing Glycolytic Potential and Stress Responses in Pigs

125 p.Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2003.High muscle glycolytic potential (GP) and blood acidosis induced by handling can result in losses of pigs during the pre-slaughter handling and in production of low quality pork. Studies were conducted to evaluate the effects of management and nutrition on muscle GP, blood responses to handling, and meat quality in pigs. Initially it was evaluated the effect of sampling location on variation in pork quality attributes and GP throughout longissimus muscle, and the effect of frequency and timing of biopsy sampling on muscle GP. These studies demonstrated that sample location affects (P 0.05) meat quality. The results from these studies indicate that feed withdrawal and dietary energy source do not reduce the acid-base responses induced by handling, but both approaches can be utilized to reduce muscle GP.U of I OnlyRestricted to the U of I community idenfinitely during batch ingest of legacy ETD