Abstract
The quality and safety attributes of poultry products have attracted increasing widespread attention and interest from scholarly groups and the general population. As natural and safe alternatives to synthetic and artificial chemical drugs (e.g., antibiotics), botanical products are recently being used in poultry farms more than 60% of the time for producing organic products. Medicinal plants, and honeybee products, are natural substances, and they were added to poultry diets in a small amount (between 1% and 3%) as a source of nutrition and to provide health benefits for poultry. In addition, they have several biological functions in the poultry body and may help to enhance their welfare. These supplements can increase the bodyweight of broilers and the egg production of laying hens by approximately 7% and 10% and enhance meat and egg quality by more than 25%. Moreover, they can improve rooster semen quality by an average of 20%. Previous research on the main biological activities performed by biotics has shown that most research only concentrated on the notion of using botanical products as growth promoters, anti-inflammatory, and antibacterial agents. In the current review, the critical effects and functions of bee products and botanicals are explored as natural and safe alternative feed additives in poultry production, such as antioxidants, sexual-stimulants, immuno-stimulants, and for producing healthy products.
Highlights
The poultry industry has recently faced many challenges, including economic recession, climate change, disease, and overuse of antibiotics
Bee and botanical products are biologically active substances found in natural products
Whether they are from animal or plant sources, they are essential materials for maintaining better growth performance for animals such as poultry and enhancing their health and welfare
Summary
The poultry industry has recently faced many challenges, including economic recession, climate change, disease, and overuse of antibiotics. Botanicals appear to have a wide variety of uses in the nutrition and production of poultry [16,17] In various ways, they are distinct from other dietary supplements, such as their ability to play positive biological roles in an animal’s body and their capability to improve its health status without leaving any traces in consumed meat [18,19,20,21]. The probable mechanism of action of plant products has been found to be through their beneficial effect on gut microflora by reducing the number of pathogenic organisms, resulting in increased nutrient availability for the host [22,23,24,25] Due to their nutritional and medical properties, herbal and bee products are used as dietary supplements in poultry production on a large scale [26,27,28,29,30,31,32]. Those products express their efficacy in terms of meat performance, carcass traits, meat quality, immunity, egg quality, and blood parameters, along with the costs and returns on investment to establish the usefulness as an alternative to antibiotics growth promoters, improving their importance
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