countries, it was occurring also in temperate countries during summer periods. When experiencing heat stress, the animals try to adapt, and this will cost the energy that should be used for performance responses.
Increased breast meat percentage Energy is one of the major dietary cost factors in the livestock production and osmoregulatory responses are highly energy consuming processes. Based on several studies, betaine is con- sidered as the most effective osmo-protectant among the or- ganic osmolytes like proline, glycine, glutamine, sarcosine, and taurine. As an excellent organic osmolyte, betaine restores and maintains cellular integrity and functionality, and it prevents dehydration. Betaine, being involved in the energy metabo- lism, can reduce the required energy for the osmoregulation. Under environmental stressful conditions, the levels of reactive oxygen species (ROS) will be also increased. As a consequence, oxidative stress will be induced, and the animals will start to produce and release heat shock proteins (HSP) and this may affect the meat quality and the fat deposition. There is more evidence that heat stress can decrease the proportion of breast muscle, while increasing the proportion of thigh muscle as well the fat deposition in broilers and that the addition of betaine can minimise these effects by improving the antioxidative capacity. Similar results were shown in trials carries out in Thailand conducted under heat stress conditions, where the natural betaine treatments could increase the breast meat percentage and lower the abdominal fat deposition when compared to the positive control, the negative control group and to the choline- chloride treatment (Table 1).
ActiBeet: A natural betaine As the global livestock production is moving away from
antibiotic growth promoters and coccidiostats, and with climate change resulting in increasing temperatures, the industry is already facing new challenges. As a multi-functional nutrient, betaine is a proven nutritional aid to protect against heat and osmotic stress, in managing gut health under thermoneutral or hot climatic conditions and for optimising the feeding efficiency in the livestock production. In challenging heat stress conditions, there is no single product able to serve as the optimum solution. Natural betaine can be part of every nutritional solution; ActiBeet as a natural betaine is a non- aggressive, non-corrosive and heat stable component for premix and feed production. With the new crystallisation facility in Austria, AGRANA is expanding its product portfolio with natural crystalline betaine: ActiBeet 96 and ActiBeet 97 for application in feed and drinking water.
References are available upon request
Table 1 - Breast meat increased and abdominal fat deposition lowered after using natural betaine treatments.
Treatment group T1: PC diet
T2: NC diet (-100 kcalME) T3: As NC + BET1 40% T4: As NC + BET2 96% T5: As NC + CHOL3 50% P-value
Pooled SEM C.V.%
Dressing
78.29 77.95 77.96 78.87 77.81
0.1537 0.327 1.18
Breast
with hock meat (%)
(%)
27.12 26.43 27.74 27.12 27.09
0.5359 0.520 5.42
Thigh (%)
16.47 16.90 16.15 16.44 17.00
0.2536 0.295 5.03
Drum stick (%)
13.25 13.83 13.38 13.49 13.29
0.1236 0.163 3.42
▶ HEAT STRESS | MAY 2021
Abdominal fat
(%) 2.49 2.45 2.44 2.46 2.58
0.9948 0.046 7.04
25
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