Nutricines in poultry production: focus on bioactive feed ingredients.
2004
Adams, C. A.
Modern poultry production faces conflicting demands: to produce large volumes of high-quality food at low prices without excessive reliance upon antibiotics and medicinal programmes, to maintain poultry health and welfare and to reduce the environmental impact of poultry production. Nutritional solutions have now become ever more important to resolve these demands and this can be achieved by taking full advantage of the nutricines or bioactive components in feeds. Important nutricines are: antioxidants, carotenoids, emulsifiers, enzymes, non-digestible oligosaccharides and organic acids. It is clear that nutricines may function at several levels. Antioxidants and organic acids maintain the quality of feed raw materials and feeds, while enzymes and emulsifiers assist with digestion and utilization of nutrients. Non-digestible oligosaccharides and organic acids modulate the microflora of the gastrointestinal tract and may help alleviate enteric disorders. Antioxidant nutricines influence poultry health through control of oxidative stress and have an impact upon meat quality. They also interact with the genome and directly influence gene expression. Carotenoids support the immune system and may also protect poultry against non-infectious diseases. The focus now in poultry production must be on a greater understanding of the relationship between diet and health and on alleviating stress on birds raised in intensive systems. This must largely be accomplished through nutritional solutions.
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