The effect of Different Selenium Levels on Production Performance and Biochemical Parameters of Broilers

Selenium (Se) is an essential trace element for animal and human. Supplementation of Se usually in livestock diet has been proved as effective element. This study was conducted to investigate the effect of adding different levels of selenium yeast on growth performance, slaughter performance, immune trait, oxidation resistance, meat quality and selenium content in tissue of broilers to comprehensively evaluate the effect of selenium. A total of 540 day-old Arbor Acres (AA) broilers were selected and feeded with the diets of treatments supplemented with 0.0, 0.3, 0.5, l.0 and 2.0 mg/kg organic selenium respectively. The trial period was 42 days and divided into two periods. Our results showed that effect of different levels of selenium on growth performance, slaughter performance, the immune status, drip loss and flesh had not significant difference (P>0.05). The activities of serum glutathione peroxidase (GSH-Px), total superoxide dismutase (T-SOD), the abilities to inhibit hydroxyl radical (OH•), total antioxidant capacity (T-AOC) and the content of GSH were significantly increased along with selenium level (P<0.05), whereas the content of malondialdehyde (MDA) was significantly decreased with organic selenium level (P<0.05). Our results demonstrated that organic selenium had no obvious effect on production performance of broilers, but significantly influenced the broiler oxidation resistance.