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

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Shakeri, M; Cottrell, JJ; Wilkinson, S; Le, HH; Suleria, HAR; Warner, RD; Dunshea, FRDate
2020-05-01Source Title
Agriculture (Basel)Publisher
MDPIUniversity of Melbourne Author/s
Suleria, Hafiz Ansar Rasul; Dunshea, Frank; Warner, Robyn; Cottrell, JeremyAffiliation
Agriculture and Food SystemsMetadata
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Journal ArticleCitations
Shakeri, M., Cottrell, J. J., Wilkinson, S., Le, H. H., Suleria, H. A. R., Warner, R. D. & Dunshea, F. R. (2020). Dietary Betaine Reduces the Negative Effects of Cyclic Heat Exposure on Growth Performance, Blood Gas Status and Meat Quality in Broiler Chickens. AGRICULTURE-BASEL, 10 (5), https://doi.org/10.3390/agriculture10050176.Access Status
Open AccessAbstract
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.
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