Abstract
Simple SummaryThere are diverse challenges in the poultry production industry that decrease the productivity and efficiency of poultry production, impair animal welfare, and pose issues to public health. Furthermore, the use of antibiotic growth promoters (AGP) in feed, which have been used to improve the growth performance and gut health of chickens, has been restricted in many countries. Tannins, polyphenolic compounds that precipitate proteins, are considered as alternatives for AGP in feed and provide solutions to mitigate challenges in poultry production due to their antimicrobial, antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and gut health promoting effects. However, because high dosages of tannins have antinutritional effects when fed to poultry, determining appropriate dosages of supplemental tannins is critical for their potential implementation as a solution for the challenges faced in poultry production.The poultry industry has an important role in producing sources of protein for the world, and the size of global poultry production continues to increase annually. However, the poultry industry is confronting diverse challenges including bacterial infection (salmonellosis), coccidiosis, oxidative stress, including that caused by heat stress, welfare issues such as food pad dermatitis (FPD) and nitrogen and greenhouse gasses emissions that cumulatively cause food safety issues, reduce the efficacy of poultry production, impair animal welfare, and induce environmental issues. Furthermore, restrictions on the use of AGP have exacerbated several of these negative effects. Tannins, polyphenolic compounds that possess a protein precipitation capacity, have been considered as antinutritional factors in the past because high dosages of tannins can decrease feed intake and negatively affect nutrient digestibility and absorption. However, tannins have been shown to have antimicrobial, antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties, and as such, have gained interest as promising bioactive compounds to help alleviate the challenges of AGP removal in the poultry industry. In addition, the beneficial effects of tannins can be enhanced by several strategies including heat processing, combining tannins with other bioactive compounds, and encapsulation. As a result, supplementation of tannins alone or in conjunction with the above strategies could be an effective approach to decrease the need of AGP and otherwise improve poultry production efficiency.
Highlights
Poultry products including meat and eggs account for a significant part of global food production and constitute a protein staple throughout the world [1]
These toxic properties of tannins were shown when tannins were included in the diets more than 7.5 g/kg, and many current studies proved that appropriate amounts of tannins ranging from to 0.5 g/kg to 5 g/kg in poultry could improve grow rate and gut health due to their potential antimicrobial, antioxidants and anti-inflammatory functions (Table 1)
Kubena et al [51] reported that tannic acid (7.5 or 15 g/kg in the feed) did not modulate the salmonella concentration in cecal content of broiler chickens inoculated with 104 colony forming units (CFU) of S. typhimurium
Summary
Poultry products including meat and eggs account for a significant part of global food production and constitute a protein staple throughout the world [1]. The efficiency of poultry production has decreased due to increases in various bacterial and parasitic infections and reductions in the growth rate of chickens [13]. Because there is no “magic bullet” that can replace AGP, some poultry producers are still using antibiotics in the U.S and in many other countries, and the use of antibiotics for livestock animals in the world is expected to increase, possibly owing to population growth which is associated with a greater demand for livestock products in middle-income countries [14]. Recently in poultry production, tannins have garnered a great deal of attention as an alternative for AGP because of their antimicrobial, antioxidants and anti-inflammation properties [19,20,21]. This review is mainly focused on the classification and bioavailability of tannins, the effects of distinct tannins on mitigating the challenges facing poultry production, and strategies to enhance the effects of tannins
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