Effects of nano-selenium on performance, meat quality, immune function, oxidation resistance, and tissue selenium content in broilers

Abstract

This study was conducted to investigate the effect of nano-selenium (nano-Se) on performance, meat quality, immune function, oxidation resistance, and tissue selenium content in broilers. A total of five hundred forty 1-d-old male Arbor Acres broilers were randomly allotted to 1 of 5 treatments with each treatment being applied to 6 replicates of 18 chicks. The 5 treatments consisted of corn-soybean meal-based diets supplemented with 0.0, 0.3, 0.5, 1.0, or 2.0 mg/kg of nano-Se. The selenium content of the unsupplemented control diet was 0.09 mg/kg for the starter phase (0 to 21 d) and 0.08 mg/kg for the grower phase (22 to 42 d). There were no significant differences (P > 0.05) in performance, meat color, or immune organ index (thymus, bursa, and spleen) due to supplementation with nano-Se. On d 42, a significant quadratic effect of nano-Se was observed on glutathione peroxidase activity, free radical inhibition, contents of IgM, glutathione, and malondialdehyde in serum, on glutathione peroxidase activity, free radical inhibition in liver, and on glutathione peroxidase activity in muscle, with birds fed 0.30 mg/kg of nano-Se exhibiting the best effect and birds fed 2.0 mg/kg of nano-Se showing the worst effect on these parameters. Liver and muscle selenium content increased linearly and quadratically as the dietary nano-Se level increased (P < 0.01), and reached the highest value when 2.0 mg/kg of nano-Se was fed. Based on a consideration of all experiment indexes, 0.3 to 0.5 mg/kg is suggested to be the optimum level of supplementation of nano-Se, and the maximum supplementation of nano-Se could not be more than 1.0 mg/kg in broilers.