Abstract
Poultry is reared in open side houses in most of the tropical countries, which results in huge temperature variation in shed causing stress resulting in increased demand of antioxidant supplementation. Since cooling of poultry houses or environment control is very expensive, thus methods focused on nutritional modifications appears to be the much logical approach. Stress increases mineral and vitamin mobilization from tissues and their excretion. Effect of some minerals and vitamin supplements such as chromium (Cr) and ascorbic acid to elevate the negative effects of environmental stress is well documented. Cr functions as an antioxidant and its deficiency are said to disrupt carbohydrate and protein metabolism. Cr has been utilized for weight gain, to improve feed conversion ratio, increase relative organ weight, muscle development, decrease cholesterol, increase high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, and improve nutrient digestion. Therefore, the present review discusses the beneficial aspects of Cr with its effect in different doses and antioxidant combinations to explore and promote its optimum utilization in poultry nutrition and production.
Highlights
Metabolism of glucose in birds is considerably different from mammals as blood glucose concentration is much higher in birds and insulin levels are low [1]
Poultry is reared in open side houses in most of the tropical countries like India, which results in huge temperature variation in the shed [5] causing stress which results in increased demand of antioxidant supplementation
Sahin et al [17] experiment conducted to evaluate the effects of chromium picolinate (Cr Pic) and ascorbic acid supplementation on performance and carcass characteristics of broilers reported that supplementing a combination of vitamin C (250 mg/kg of diet) and Cr (400 mg Cr/kg of diet) may offer a potential protective management practice in preventing heat stress-related depression in performance and carcass characteristics of broiler chickens
Summary
Metabolism of glucose in birds is considerably different from mammals as blood glucose concentration is much higher in birds and insulin levels are low [1]. Many studies suggest that Cr performs better in terms of weight gain and carcass conformation in combination with antioxidants such as ascorbic acid or vitamin E [6,41,42], especially in case of stress conditions such as high or low temperature and humidity.
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