Vitagene regulation as a new strategy to fight stresses in poultry production

Commercial poultry production is associated with various stresses leading to decrease of productive and reproductive performance of growing chickens, parent birds and layers. In commercial poultry/animal production, there are four major types of stress: technological, environmental, nutritional and internal stresses. A growing body of evidence indicates that most of the stresses in poultry production at the cellular level are associated with oxidative stress due to excess of free radical production or inadequate antioxidant protection. The vitagene concept of fighting stresses emerged as a new direction in a nutritional research and it was successfully transferred from medical sciences to agricultural sciences, including poultry and pig production. In fact, vitagene regulation by nutritional means appeared as a new approach to realise a full potential of the body for adaptation to stress conditions in poultry/animal production. Therefore, the aim of the study was to test if supplementation of the vitagene-regulating antioxidant mixture (Magic Antistress Mix/PerforMax) with drinking water can improve broiler performance in stressful conditions of commercial chicken production. The experiment was conducted at the poultry farm AO «Prodo Tumenskiy Broiler» (Tumen region, Russia) in a special poultry house designed and equipped for conducting experimental trials and measuring growth parameters weekly. Twelve thousand and four hundred newly hatched Arbor Acres chicks were divided into two equal groups with four replicates in each group and placed in poultry house. The results confirmed the idea that using vitagene-regulating mixture with drinking water can improve chicken performance, including improvement in FCR and vaccination efficacy.