Effect of Dietary Supplementation of Chromium Yeast Alone and in Combination with Antioxidants on Performance of Broilers

Abstract

| The present study was conducted to evaluate the impacts of dietary supplementation of chromium yeast alone and in combination with antioxidants on growth, feed conversion and nitrogen retention in broilers during winter season. A total of 180, Cob-400 straight run broiler chicks at one day-old, were randomly distributed into four equal groups replicated three times with 15 birds per replicate. The treatments consisted of 4 experimental groups as follows: T 0 , T 1 , T 2 and T 3 . Chicks were fed corn-soya based broiler mash (basal diet) maintained as control (T 0 ), the basal diet supplemented with chromium (Cr)at 0.5 mg Cr/kg diet from chromium yeast (T 1 ), the basal diet + 0.5 mg Cr /kg diet from chromium yeast + 250 mg of ascorbic acid /kg of diet (T 2 ), and the basal diet + 0.5 mg Cr /kg diet from chromium yeast + 250 mg vitamin E /kg of diet (T 3 ). Body weight and feed consumption were recorded to evaluate the growth performance and feed conversion ratio (FCR). Nitrogen retention was observed by conducting metabolic trial during 6 th week. The climatic data revealed that there were huge variations in house air temperatures within a day. In house relative humidity ranged from 29.01% to 44.21% during the experimental period. The average weight gains were numerically higher and FCR values were lower in supplemented groups particularly in T 2 group than T 0 group. The significantly higher (p< 0.05) nitrogen retention values were recorded in T 2 group followed by T 1 than T 0 group. It was concluded that Cr in combination with ascorbic acid yielded better results in terms of performance in broilers, thus suggesting some synergetic action of both Cr and ascorbic acid that need to investigate further with specially designed projects.

Nutritional strategies to alleviate heat stress effects through feed restrictions and feed additives (vitamins and minerals) in broilers under summer conditions

“…to stressed broilers markedly improved total serum protein and declined serum glucose, creatinine, uric acid, triglycerides, and total cholesterol. These results are following Haq et al (2018) who noted that supplemental 250 mg Vit.C+0.5 mg Cr or 250 mg Vit.E+0.5 mg Cr/kg diet of broilers significantly decreased glucose, triglycerides, and total cholesterol. Additionally, supplementation with 250 mg Vit.E+250 mg Vit.C or 0.5 mg Cr per kg diet resulted in an increased serum total protein, but reduced serum glucose and cholesterol under high temperatures in summer conditions (Tawfeek et al 2014).…”

The use of dietary chromium associated with vitamins and minerals (synthetic and natural source) to improve some quality aspects of broiler thigh meat reared under heat stress condition

“…They observed a significant increase in protein concentrations in breast samples. A similar study (Haq et al 2018) showed that chromium yeast with or without antioxidants association increased the protein content and decreased the fat concentrations. The authors showed that the combined effect of chromium and vitamin C potentiates the protein deposition in broilers' breasts.…”

Strategies to combat the deleterious impacts of heat stress through feed restrictions and dietary supplementation (vitamins, minerals) in broilers

“…The harmful effects of HS in broiler chicks are a result of a decrease in FI, increase in body temperature, depressed immune response, declined energy bioavailability in cells, digestibility of nutrients, metabolism, and absorption, damage in endocrine functions, disorders in the role and structure of intestinal epithelium, and variations in microbiota of the gut (Lara and Rostagno., 2013;Wang et al, 2018). Dietary supplementation with feed additives (vitamins and minerals) may improve broiler performance and combat these deleterious effects (Sahin et al, 2018;Haq et al, 2018;Zhu et al, 2017;Attia et al, 2017). In this study, the beneficial impacts of feed additives on broiler growth may be due to the individual effects of vitamin C, vitamin E, Cr, Zn or a combination.…”