Effect of the supplementation of vitamins and organic minerals on the performance of broilers under heat stress

ABSTRACT

The objective of this experiment was to evaluate the effect of diet supplementation with vitamins C and E and organic minerals Zn and Se on the performance of 1 to 35 day-old broilers from, kept under cyclic heat stress (25 to 32ºC). Four levels of vitamin-mineral supplementation were used (T1-control diet (60/30 IU of vit E for starter and growing diet, respectively, zero vit. C, 80 ppm of inorganic Zn, 0.3 ppm of inorganic Se); T2-control diet + 100 UI vit E and 300 ppm vit C/kg; T3-control diet + 40 ppm Zn and 0,3 ppm Se/kg; T4-control diet + T2 and T3 levels) and two environments - thermoneutral and cyclic heat stress (TN and HS) from 14 to 35 days of age. In the period when part of the birds was submitted to HS, from 14 to 35 days, it was observed lower feed intake (FI) and better feed conversion (FC) for HS birds receiving supplementation compared to the group without supplementation. Evaluating the total period, all the types of supplementation provided lower FI and better FC than the control treatment, but not affected weight gain (WG). The supplementation of vitamins C and E and/or organic minerals Zn and Se improved the performance of birds due to a lower FI resulting in better FC, independently on the environment.