Invasive and noninvasive detection of adaptive response in meat poultry after preventive application of a stress-protective antioxidant composition

Prevention of technological stress among chickens at commercial faring is an important task but the methods for evaluating effectiveness of these measures in using pharmacological agents have not yet been developed. A method has been developed to diagnose the stressful conditions in commercial stock herds that makes it possible to control physiological state of chickens via corticosterone detection in poultry manure. The method is used to assess development of nonspecific adaptive response in chickens under the influence of various technological factors without direct impact on the body. Here, in farm trails of pharmacological prevention of stresses under intensive poultry production we first proved that the non-invasive assay of corticosterone level in manure extracts may estimate an adaptive response in chickens after technological stress. The SPAO complex (Stress-Protector Antioxidant, a pharmacological composition developed at the Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, South Ural State University) was used as an anti-stress agent. SPAO active complex contains lithium citrate, vitamins, vitamin-like substances etc. that affect metabolism. Blood and poultry manure samples were collected from the Hubbard F15 crossbred chickens during the transfer from the section of rearing flocks to the adult herd at 120 day-old poultry (group 1 of 12371 females and 1246 males, and control group of 12865 females and 1255 males). SPAO complex increased viability in the herd up to 4.6 %, egg production up to 2.53 %, average hatching up to 2.28 % and decrease feed costs per broiler chick on average by 16.0 % (presumably due to the direct effect of the components of the complex on the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal system). Pharmacological prevention of stresses allowed to extend economic use of hens in the experimental group for 2 weeks, to increase the gross yield of eggs up to 12.4 pcs whereas an earlier depletion of the productive performance occurred in the control group. In use of SPAO complex blood corticosterone level decreased 2.7 times and corticosterone in extracts of poultry manure was 22.3 % lower. Corticosterone levels in hen blood and the extracts from manure showed statistically significant correlations both before stressing ( r = 0.89, p < 0.05) and after stressing ( r = 0.68, p < 0.05) which indicates a high reliability of the proposed noninvasive method of stress diagnostics to estimate the effectiveness of pharmacological prevention of stress in industrial poultry.