Effect of dietary betaine supplementation on productive, physiological and immunological performance and carcass characteristic of growing developed chicks under the condition of heat stress [electronic resouce].

Includes references.

The objective of this study was to determine the effect of betaine supplementation on growth performance, carcass characteristics, physiological, and immune response of heat stressed growing chicks, and try to employ some useful properties of betaine for reducing the adverse effect of heat stress conditions. Nine hundred 50% mail and 50% female 8-weeks old of Inshas chicks were divided into three groups with three replicates of 100 chicks each. The birds were reared on floor and assigned to dietary betaine supplementation 0.0, 0.1% and 0.2 % (Treatments A, B and C, respectively). At 13 wks of age each dietary treatment divided into two sub groups of 150 birds with three replicates50 birds each. One sub group of each treatment was exposed to heat stress (39.5 to 41 C°) five hours for five excessive days and another without heat stress. Both feed and water were provided ad-libitum during experimental period (8 to 16 wks). The average daily temperature and relative humidity were 26±3C° and 66.2±2.5%, respectively. The results indicated that: 1-Each of, body weight, body weight gain and feed conversion significantly (P?0.01) improved by dietary betaine supplementation during the first period (8 – 12 wks of age). Key Words: Betaine, Carcass, Immunity, Growing, Heat Stress, and Performance.

Summary in Arabic.

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