Dietary Betaine Reduces the Negative Effects of Cyclic Heat Exposure on Growth Performance, Blood Gas Status and Meat Quality in Broiler Chickens

Abstract

Heat stress (HS) impairs growth performance and has a severe impact on lipid and protein metabolism, leading to serious adverse effects on meat quality. Forty-eight day-old-male Ross-308 chicks were assigned to two temperature conditions, thermoneutral or cyclical HS, and fed with either a control diet (CON) or the CON plus betaine (BET). Heat stress increased rectal temperature (p < 0.001), respiration rate (p < 0.001) and increased blood pH (p = 0.017), indicating that HS caused respiratory alkalosis. Heat stress reduced body weight during the final stage of growing period (p = 0.005), while BET improved it (p = 0.023). Heat stress tended to reduce breast muscle water content and drip loss (p = 0.089 and p = 0.082), while both were improved with BET (p = 0.008 and p = 0.001). Heat stress tended to reduce the myofibril fragmentation index (p = 0.081) whereas it increased with BET (p = 0.017). Heat stress increased thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (p = 0.017), while BET improved it (p = 0.008). Meat tenderness was not affected by HS, but was improved with BET (p < 0.001). In conclusion, BET improved growth performance over the latter stages of the growing period, and improved product quality of broiler chickens when chickens exposed to HS.

A Dietary Sugarcane-Derived Polyphenol Mix Reduces the Negative Effects of Cyclic Heat Exposure on Growth Performance, Blood Gas Status, and Meat Quality in Broiler Chickens

“…Recently we characterised changes in distribution of the organic osmolyte betaine during heat stress in broilers. Supplementation with betaine resulted in increased distribution to skeletal muscle, reduced lipid peroxidation and improved meat tenderness [16,17]. The current study confirms the observation that HS reduces plasma and muscle betaine, likely because of increased betaine utilisation.…”

“…Upon arrival the chicks were wing-tagged, individually weighed and randomly allocated to 20 pens in two climate-controlled rooms (three chicks/pen and four replicates for each treatment). There were an additional four pens/temperature room of chicks from the same hatching in each room that were utilised in a concurrent experiment with both experiments utilising the same control diet [ 16 ]. The temperature for both rooms was maintained at 33 °C (continuously for the first 7 days) and decreased to 25 °C for TN (thermoneutral) (days 7–35); or HS where the temperature was at 33 °C (8 h/day) and 25 °C (16 h/day) from days 7–35.…”

Betaine and Isoquinoline Alkaloids Protect against Heat Stress and Colonic Permeability in Growing Pigs

“…Perhaps the best-known supplement is the organic osmolyte betaine, which has a number of properties that counteract the effects of HS. These include that as an osmolyte betaine reduces the activity of membrane-bound ATPases [ 10 ], which may contribute to reducing basal metabolic rate and rectal temperatures in heat-stressed animals [ 11 , 12 ]. Additional properties as a methyl donor could contribute to a wide range of biological reactions reducing oxidative stress and methylation pathways, improving efficiency in dairy [ 13 ], meat [ 14 ] and egg production [ 15 ] from heat-stressed livestock.…”

Supplementation Effect of Oleuropein Extract Combined with Betaine, Magnesium, and Vitamin E on Pigs’ Performance and Meat Quality Characteristics

“…Lower TBARS values have also been observed in meat from pigs given a short-term feeding of magnesium supplements [ 46 ], although supplementation doses were much higher (1500 mg/kg) than those used in the present research. In addition, the use of betaine (1000 mg/kg) alone [ 47 ] or in combination with 200 IU/kg of vitamin E improved the TBARS production of meat [ 18 ]. It has been reported that betaine participates in the methionine cycle through the remethylation of homocysteine to methionine, which is a precursor of cysteine, taurine, and glutathione, which have been reported to have antioxidant effects [ 5 , 18 ].…”