Insects have been used as animal feed protein sources in livestock and poultry breeding, and their impact on pork quality needs to be studied. This experiment mainly explores the effect of adding black soldier flies to the feed on the growth performance and meat quality of pigs. All 24 weaned piglets were randomly divided into three groups, one group was given a normal diet as the control group (C), and the other two groups were supplemented with 4% (T1) and 8% (T2) black soldier flies as an alternative protein source, respectively. Pig growth performance and carcass traits were measured at the end of the 113-day experiment. After euthanizing the pigs, we used metabolomics to detect pig dorsal muscle and qPCR to detect gene expression in dorsal muscle and adipose tissue. For the average daily gain and backfat thickness, T2 group was significantly higher than T1 group and C group (p < 0.05). Intramuscular fat content was significantly elevated in the T1 and T2 groups (p < 0.05). The metabolomics results showed that there were significant differences in metabolites among the three groups (p < 0.05). The addition of black soldier flies could increase the content of some free amino acids, and the content of lipid metabolites also changed significantly (p < 0.05). The gene expression of type 1 muscle fibers in the T1 group and the PGC-1α gene expression in the T1 and T2 groups were significantly increased in the dorsal muscle (p < 0.05). The results of the present study showed that adding 4% black soldier fly instead of fish meal in the diet of growing pigs can significantly improve meat quality and supplementation of 8% black soldier flies has beneficial effects on growth performance of pigs.

With the large-scale and intensive development of pigeon breeding industry and the improvement of production level, stress factors have an important impact on the immune, antioxidant capacity, and productivity of pigeons. In this study, the extenuating effect of Astragalus, Epimedium, and Ligustrum lucidum (AEF) on the antioxidant, production performance, and immune mechanism was investigated in breeding pigeons. Eighty pairs of 11-month-old healthy breeding pigeons with the same egg production batch were randomly divided into 4 groups: control group (C group), treated with AEF (AEF group), in restraint stress (S group) and treated with AEF and in restraint stress (S+AEF group). Results showed that AEF reduces weight loss during lactation and increases spleen weight, increased IgA, IgG, T4, GSH-Px, and SOD in serum and decreased T3 and MDA (P < 0.05). Furthermore, treatment with AEF declined HSP60, HSP70, HSP90, GR levels in liver and cFOS, GR mRNA levels in the Hypothalamus, GR mRNA levels in the pituitary (P < 0.05). Meanwhile, the results of the intestine studies showed that AEF promoted relative abundances of Firmicutes and relieve intestinal injury in the colon of pigeons. These results indicated AEF enhanced stress resistance, immunity, production performance and antioxidant capacity of pigeons.