The effect of dietary selenium sources and levels on performance, selenium content in muscle and glutathione peroxidase activity in broiler chickens

Abstract

The study examined the effect of dietary supplements of sodium selenite (SS), selenium-enriched yeast (Sel-Plex®, SP) and selenium-enriched alga Chlorella (SCH) on growth traits, carcass analysis, selenium content in breast meat, glutathione peroxidase (GSH-Px) activity in breast and thigh meat and liver of chickens. The experiment was realized with seven hundred thirty-five cockerels Ross 308 randomly divided into 7 dietary treatments with 3 replications in each treatment. Chickens were fed a diet supplemented with 0 (control), 0.15 or 0.30 mg of selenium/kg in the form of sodium selenite (SS), Sel-Plex® (SP) and selenium-enriched alga Chlorella (SCH). Selenium addition influenced body weight at 21 (P ≤ 0.001) and 35 (P ≤ 0.05) days of age. Significantly higher body weight at 35 days of age was determined in chickens receiving 0.15 mg of selenium from SP (2 122 g) and 0.3 mg of selenium from SCH (2 116 g) contrary to dietary treatment with a lower level of selenium from SCH (2 010 g) per kg of feed. The selenium content in breast muscle was increased (P ≤ 0.001) by both the lower and higher selenium concentration in the form of SP (0.6 and 0.85 mg/kg dry matter) and SCH (0.6 and 0.82 mg/kg dry matter) in comparison with the control (0.31 mg/kg dry matter). A significant increase (P ≤ 0.001) was ascertained even in SS treatments, but no significant differences were found between both levels. The selenium source and level, including SS, significantly (P ≤ 0.001) influenced the GSH-Px activity in breast and thigh meat.  

Exploring the effect of selenium forms on final body weight, slaughtercharacteristics and tissue selenium concentration in Aseel cockerels

“…Numerous other studies confirmed the lack of Se supplementation effect the final body weight, slaughter yield and performance in chicken broilers (Wang and Xu, 2008;Ibrahim et al, 2011). Contrary to our findings, no effect of Se was observed on carcass composition or dressing% (Heindl et al, 2010 Kinal et al (2012) reported higher live weight and improved carcass traits in Se-treated groups. However, on the other hand, Sevcikova et al (2006) found no differences in carcass characteristic regarding the weight of breast and thigh muscle, liver, giblets, and carcass yield.…”

Selenium in poultry nutrition: a review

“…Positive effects of Se on quality and stability of broiler chicken meat have been confirmed by a number of authors (Heindl et al 2010;Wang et al 2011b, c;Yang et al 2012 a.o.). Further studies focus on the effects of Se on egg quality (Attia et al 2010;Skrivan et al 2013).…”

“…Effects of various sources and levels of Se in the diet on poultry yield have been subject of a number of studies Attia et al 2010;Heindl et al 2010;Yang et al 2012;Chen et al 2013;Habibian et al 2013;Rama Rao et al 2013 a.o.). The achieved results are not uniform, both negative and positive responses being reported.…”

“…Dietary supplementation with Se-CH increased body weight. Also Heindl et al (2010) As there is a relation between Se and vitamin E in the sense that vitamin E "spares" the need of Se, it may be deduced that a positive effect on chicken yield indicators may be manifested even in the case of an insufficient supply of both these substances. The need for Se decreases inversely to vitamin E levels, which documents the sparing effect of vitamin E on the need for Se (Toulova et al 1977), or Se deficiency increases the need for vitamin E (De ).…”

“…The selenium source (selenium-enriched yeast and selenium-enriched alga Chlorella) level, including sodium selenite, significantly influenced the GSH-Px activity in breast and thigh meat (Heindl et al 2010).…”