article · The Journal of Poultry Science
High ambient temperatures negatively affect the growth performance, feed intake, feed conversion ratio, breast muscle weight, and abdominal fat weight of broiler chickens. Supplementing broiler diets with nano-elemental selenium at 0.3 milligrams per kilogram mitigates these adverse heat-stress effects. Chickens fed nano-selenium display increased liver glutathione peroxidase expression and reduced malondialdehyde levels in liver and breast muscle tissues under heat stress, indicating reduced oxidative damage. Furthermore, dietary nano-selenium raises selenium and vitamin E concentrations in breast muscle and increases the expression of interleukin-2 and interleukin-6 cytokine genes across both normal and elevated temperatures. In contrast, conventional sodium selenite supplied at the same dosage fails to alleviate the detrimental impacts of high ambient temperature on broiler performance. Nano-selenium supplementation can therefore support growth performance by boosting antioxidative status and immune properties during heat stress.
Heat stress presents a substantial challenge to poultry production by impairing chicken growth and feed efficiency. Demonstrating that dietary nano-selenium protects against heat-induced performance losses and oxidative stress offers a nutritional strategy to maintain bird welfare and meat yield during high-temperature conditions, outperforming standard mineral selenium supplements.
This research suggests an application in poultry feed additives, where feed manufacturers and broiler producers could incorporate nano-selenium to protect flocks against heat stress. As an applied study conducted on a small cohort of thirty-six broiler chicks over a fifteen-day trial, the intervention demonstrates tested biological efficacy at a specific dose, but larger-scale commercial flock validation and safety assessments would be necessary before adoption in standard production systems.
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The objective of the present study was to examine the effects of nano-selenium on growth performance, antioxidative status, and immune function in broiler chickens reared under thermoneutral (22±1°C) or high ambient temperature (35±1°C) conditions. Thirty-six broiler chicks at 15d old were randomly divided into 6 treatments in a 3×2 factorial design. The main factors included the dietary supplementation (basal diet without Se supplementation [control], basal diet with 0.3 mg of nano-elemental Se per kilogram of diet [nano-Se], and basal diet with 0.3 mg of sodium selenite per kilogram of diet [SSe]) and the ambient temperature challenge (22±1°C or 35±1°C). The birds were given the experimental diets from 15 to 30 d of age. High ambient temperature significantly depressed body weight gain, feed intake, feed conversion ratio, breast muscle weight, and abdominal fat weight, while feeding nano-Se clearly alleviated these negative effects of high ambient temperature. In addition, feeding nano-Se increased glutathione peroxidase mRNA expression in liver and alleviated the negative effects of high ambient temperature via reducing the malondialdehyde content in liver and breast muscle. Furthermore, feeding nano-Se increased mRNA expression of cytokine genes (interleukins 2 and 6) under both thermoneutral and high ambient temperature conditions. Under both thermoneutral and high-temperature conditions, broiler chickens fed nano-Se had higher Se and vitamin E concentrations in breast muscle than broiler chickens fed the control diet. In contrast, feeding SSe at the same dose as nano-Se did not alleviate the negative effects of high ambient temperature on broiler chickens. In conclusion, dietary supplementation with nano-Se at 0.3 mg/kg diet might enhance growth performance by improving antioxidative or immune properties in broilers reared under high ambient temperature.
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DOI: 10.2141/jpsa.0150133
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