Effects of supplemental Vitamins E and C on growth performance and physiological responses of broiler chicken under environmental heat stress

Abstract

Growth and physiological responses of broiler chicken fed supplemental Vitamins E and C in feeds under heat stress was evaluated. One hundred and twenty Arbor acre broiler chickens were used for the experiment. At day-old, the birds were acclimatized for 7 days, after which the birds were randomly allotted into 4 treatment groups which was replicated three times with 10 birds per replicate in a Completely Randomized Design. Four experimental diets were formulated in which the first treatment (T1) served as the control without vitamin, second treatment (T2) had 100mg of vitamin C per kg of feed, third treatment (T3) had 200mg of vitamin E per kg of feed, and fourth treatment (T4) had combination of 100mg vitamins C and 200mg Vitamin E per kg of feed. Data were collected on feed intake, weight gain, feed conversion ratio, environmental temperature, relative humidity, rectal temperature, pulse rate and respiratory rates of the chicken. Data were subjected to descriptive statistics, correlation analysis and Analysis of Variance using SAS (9.13). There were no significant effects on growth performance parameters monitored. Physiological indices showed mean values of 40.08 ± 5.85 0C, 67.41 ± 7.22 beats/min and 60.34 ± 5.84 breathes/min for rectal temperature, pulse rate and respiratory rate of the broiler chicken, respectively. There were low and positive correlations between rectal temperature and pulse rate of the chickens (r = 0.23); rectal temperature and respiratory rate (r = 0.15); pulse rate and respiratory rate (r = 0.32). There were significant (p<0.05) effects of Vitamins C and E on rectal temperature, respiratory rate and pulse rate of the chickens. Based on the findings of this study, it was concluded that Vitamin C supplement was most effective than Vitamin E and their combination in suppressing thermo-physiological responses of the broiler chicken.

Keywords: Humidity, response, temperature, physiology, supplement