Chickens perform better in heat stress conditions when fed Polygain

Summary

• Heat stress can cause welfare and performance issues in birds.

• Polygain reduced the respiration rate (panting) and increased birds' average daily gain under heat stress conditions.

• Results published in Animals https://doi.org/10.3390/ani10071158

Background

Heat stress is a condition in chickens (and other poultry) caused by high temperatures, especially when combined with relative humidity. Severe heat stress can cause drops in production efficiency and increased mortality rates in a flock. Birds are 'heat stressed' if they have difficulty balancing body heat production and body heat loss. Initial signs of heat stress include increased breaths per minute (panting).

Trial Design

121 day-old male Ross-308 chicks obtained from a local hatchery. Upon arrival, the chicks were wing-tagged, individually weighed and randomly allocated to 20 pens in two climate-controlled rooms (three chicks/pen and four replicates for each treatment). The treatments for this trial included a control and four doses of Polygain (0.2%, 0.4%, 0.6% and 1.0%). Birds were fed a standard commercial diet for 35 days, starting from day-old chicks.

The temperature for both rooms was maintained at 33 ◦C (continuously for the first seven days) and decreased to 25 ◦C for Thermoneutral (days 7–35) or Heat Stress where the temperature was at 33 ◦C (8 h/day) and 25 ◦C (16 h/day) from days 7–35. The room's relative humidity was maintained at 50 ± 5% throughout the experiment.

Results

These results are an excerpt from a published journal article:

Shakeri, M.; Cottrell, J.J.; Wilkinson, S.; Le, H.H.; Suleria, H.A.R.; Warner, R.D.; Dunshea, F.R. A Dietary Sugarcane-Derived Polyphenol Mix Reduces the Negative Effects of Cyclic Heat Exposure on Growth Performance, Blood Gas Status, and Meat Quality in Broiler Chickens. Animals 2020, 10, 1158. https://doi.org/10.3390/ani10071158

The background to heat stress in Poultry draws from “Heat Stress in Poultry: Solving the Problem” from the UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Crown copyright)

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