Prophylactic effects of dietary ascorbic acid on oxidative stress indices, physiological and behavioural responses of domestic pigeons exposed to road transport stress

Abstract

Transport disturbs birds' welfare and health status which lead to oxidative stress and dietary ascorbic acid mitigates the adverse effects of transport stress. The present study was aimed to evaluate the impacts of ascorbic acid administration on oxidative stress indices, cortisol, H/L ratio, tonic immobility reaction and rectal temperature of pigeons exposed to road transport. A total of 80 clinically healthy pigeons were selected and randomly divided to eight equal groups as follow: (1) Ctrl -: fed by basal diet and no subjected to transport stress; (2) Ctrl+: fed by the basal diet and subjected to transport stress; (3, 4) 1DBS10 and 1DBS16: received ascorbic acid from 1 day before transport stress at doses of 10 g/100 L and 16 g/100 L of drinking water, respectively; (5, 6) 3DBS10 and 3DBS16: treated with ascorbic acid from 3 consecutive days before transport stress at doses of 10 g/100 L and 16 g/100 L, respectively and (7, 8) 7DBS10 and 7DBS16: received ascorbic acid from 7 consecutive days before the transport at doses 10 g/100 L and 16 g/100 L, respectively. Birds were transported for 3 h over a distance of about 200 km. The total antioxidant capacity, malondialdehyde and cortisol were measured before transport and at 6, 24 and 72 h post-transportation.The rectal temperature and tunic immobility reactions were recorded. Dietary ascorbic acid led to a decrease in tonic immobility response, hetrophil to lymphocyte ratio, circulating cortisol and total antioxidant capacity, and an increase in circulating malondialdehyde in pigeons exposed to transport stress compare to Ctrl+ group. In conclusion, ascorbic acid administration at dose 16 g/100 L of drinking water from 3 and 7 days before exposure to stress helps attenuate undesirable effects of oxidative stress in pigeons.

Effects of dietary stinging nettle (Urtica dioica) on hormone stress and selected serum biochemical parameters of broilers subjected to chronic heat stress

“…Therefore, various studies have applied different dietary antioxidants to ameliorate the harmful effects of heat stress in broilers (Khan et al., 2012 ). Various antioxidant compounds and antioxidant‐rich plants were added as natural feed additives to the diet to improve health status, antioxidant property and productive performance of birds under exposure to stressful conditions (Hosseinian & Ansari, 2021 ; Luo et al., 2018 ). Stinging nettle (SN) ( Urtica dioica ) is a medicinal plant that is employed as a phytogenic feed additive in the poultry diet (De Vico et al., 2018 ).…”

Effects of Transportation on Blood Indices, Oxidative Stress, Rumen Fermentation Parameters and Rumen Microbiota in Goats

“…Serum markers such as T-AOC, GSH-PX, and other indicators are often used to measure the redox state of the organism [ 18 , 19 , 20 , 21 ]. Hosseinian et al [ 22 ] found that after 6, 24, and 72 h of transportation, compared with the control group, the level of MDA in the serum of pigeons increased significantly, the T-AOC decreased significantly, and oxidative stress occurred in the body. Similarly, in our experiment, goats experienced a notable decrease in serum GSH-Px activity and a significant rise in protein carbonyl content following transportation, indicating that they, too, underwent oxidative stress.…”

An Overview of Analytical Methods for Quantitative Determination of Coenzyme Q10 in Foods

“…Since more than 90% of CoQ10 content in human serum and biological tissues exists in the reduced form [ 7 ], ubiquinol-10 is responsible for the antioxidant properties observed in vivo [ 29 , 30 ]. However, ubiquinol-10 is unstable and quickly oxidizes into ubiquinone-10 in the air [ 17 , 29 , 31 ]; in addition, the latter may increase in tissues, to a certain extent, due to oxidative stress caused by the transport of animals and the following slaughter procedure [ 3 , 32 , 33 ].…”