Saponin in Poultry and Monogastric Animals: A Review

Due to awareness of consumers towards clean and safe meat availability, plant secondary metabolites (PSMs) such as essential oils, organic acids, saponins and flavonoids etc. are rapidly gaining attention since last few decades. PSMs are the secondary compounds that are produced by plants and they don’t have primary role as nutrients. These can be the effective alternative to antibiotics because of their promising effects on overall performance of poultry and monogastric animals. Saponins are high molecular weight glycosides which are able to form foam in aqueous solution. They are credited with several pharmacological and biological activities like hypocholesterolaemic, anti-carcinogenic, anti-microbial, anti-inflammatory, anti-oxidant and immunomodulatory effects on both poultry and animals. Saponins can be obtained from various parts of plants such as seed, stem, root, pericarp, shell and bark. Optimum level of saponin is being used as feed supplement in poultry and monogastric animal’s nutrition and has shown many beneficial effects. In the present review an attempt was made to summarize these promising effects of saponin in poultry and monogastric animal’s nutrition.