Beat the odds of heat stress in poultry birds with ‘HeatBeat’

Heat stress brings about major physiological changes in poultry birds, which negatively affects feed intake, feed efficiency, production, performance, reproductive efficiency, and disease outbreaks. Reduced feed intake during heat stress decreases vitamins and minerals intake, which leads to decreased serum and liver concentrations of these micro-nutrients. Moreover, mobilization and excretion of minerals and vitamins are increased under stress conditions due to increased respiration. These adverse effects can be reduced by following integrated managemental and nutritional strategies. Amongst these, nutritional management plays a key role. The use of combined feed additive package is a convenient and feasible way out to mitigate heat stress. HeatBeat is a synergistic and power packed combination of trio of Natural Vitamin C, Organic Chromium Complex and Mint. HeatBeat is a unique differentiated concept that has shown positive results in terms of ameliorating heat stress and improving productivity in poultry birds.

High ambient temperature is one of the most critical challenge in poultry production system leads to severe economical losses (Aengwanich and Chinrasri, 2002). Compared to other species of domestic animals, broiler chickens are more sensitive to high ambient temperatures since sweat glands are absent in poultry sp. Furthermore, heat stress is one of the major environmental stressors in the poultry industry resulting in substantial economic loss. Heat stress leads to physiological changes viz oxidative stress, acid-base imbalance, suppressed immunocompetence, reduced feed efficiency, body weight, feed intake, and egg production and increased mortality, (Sahin et al., 2003). Heat stress causes exhaustion of antioxidant enzymes due to an increased level of lipid peroxidation. Several strategies have been implemented to attenuate heat stress in poultry. Nutritional strategies, such as supplementing vitamins, minerals, osmolytes, and phytochemicals, have been widely studied and found to reduce the deleterious effects of heat stress (Sahin and Kucuk, 2001).

Stress increases mineral and vitamin mobilization from tissues and their excretion, thus may exacerbate a marginal vitamin and mineral deficiency or an increased mineral and vitamin requirement. It has been reported that the negative effects of environmental stress could be prevented by the use of some minerals and vitamin supplements such as vitamin C and Cr. Besides feeding antioxidant vitamins, the need of supplementing chromium was realized by many nutritionists for mitigating heat stress in birds. Looking into the practices and nutritional strategies in the global poultry industry of supplementing vitamins, minerals, osmolytes and phytochemicals to reduce the deleterious effects of heat stress, the innovative and research breakthrough product HEATBEAT was developed by Indian Herbs Specialties, India.

HEATBEAT is a unique trio combination of natural vitamin C, organic chromium (Cr) complex & Mint (menthe sp.) especially designed to mitigate heat stress in poultry birds. It help poultry birds adapt to stress, alleviate oxidative stress and improve immune function. HeatBeat@100-200g/ton of feed is recommended for heat stress amelioration in birds.
Natural source of vitamin C in HeatBeat- HeatBeat comprises of natural, stable and highly bioavailable form of Vitamin C that gets fully absorbed and provide self-replicating and sustained antioxidant activity. HeatBeat is highly heat stable with outstanding bioavailability of natural vitamin C. Retention and activity of synthetic Vitamin C is reduced by 10% every month during storage at room temperature and by more than 80% during pelletization, whereas natural vitamin C remains stable during storage at room temperature and even at high temperature pelletization. Natural vitamin C in HeatBeat acts as a universal antioxidant that protects both aqueous & lipid phase of cells whereas synthetic vitamin C is active in aqueous phase only, leaving lipid phase unprotected.
Emerging literature revealed that adult poultry is capable of synthesizing vitamin C to meet their requirements in normal conditions. However, endogenous vitamin C is not sufficient to combat heat stress and its requirement increases during stress. Dietary supplementation with vitamin C alleviates stress induced metabolic signs, improves performance, enhances immunological status and reduces mortality, as reported by many authors.

Organic Chromium Complex in HeatBeat- Chromium in HeatBeat is available in organic complexation with phyto-ingredients that helps serves as anti-stress factor, increases immune capability, Supplementing Chromium through HeatBeat helps reducing stress corticosteroid levels (Rajalekshmi et al., 2012). Heatbeat is a customized product with benefit of trio that has higher stress ameliorating, antioxidant activity. HeatBeat contains Organic Chromium @ 50 mg/100 gm of the product. Organic form of chromium in HeatBeat is more than 10 times bioavailable than inorganic sources.

It has been postulated that exposure to stress leads to increased urinary excretion of chromium and may exacerbate a marginal chromium deficiency in birds. Also, during heat stress, feed intake tends to decrease, thus the availability of certain important minerals is reduced. chromium is a essential trace mineral and have physiological and nutritional functions in carbohydrate, protein & lipid metabolism, cofactor for insulin activity, Lipoprotein enzyme activity, for protein uptake in muscles, in reducing fat deposition, improving carcass quality, increases Ab titre, combating immunosuppression (Liu et al., 2017). Supplementation of chromium is recommended under heat stress conditions, it helps stimulating the function of insulin through increasing insulin sensitive cell receptors. Increased supplemental chromium results in decreased serum corticosterone and increased insulin, consequently, lowered serum glucose and cholesterol concentration in heat stressed broilers (Brooks et al., 2016). Supplementation of organic chromium has been found to have more beneficial effects in heat stress birds as compared to inorganic forms due to its increased absorption and bioavailability.

Fast-growing lean broilers generate more heat than their free-living counterparts living in the wild (Geraert et al. 1993). These physiological characteristics make it difficult for broilers to regulate their body temperature. Therefore, body temperature regulation helps in relieving the deleterious effects of stress. Peppermint is known for its very high antioxidant activity. Peppermint (Mentha) is a member of the Labiatae family and one of the oldest medicinal plants in the world, most common species available across globe are namely Mentha piperatia, M. aquatic, M. spicata and Mentha arvensis.

Its essential oils are made up of menthone, menthol, methyl acetate and flavonoid (Murray, 1995). Peppermint has been demonstrated for active compounds like eugenol, caffeic acid, rosmrinic acid, flavonoids and α-tocopherol shaping its antioxidant and anti-peroxidant trait (Rastogi and Mehrotra, 1991).

Peppermint in HeatBeat acts on cold sensitive receptors and provides a cooling sensation to give relief from high temperature and to attain thermoregulation in birds. Heat stress induces the synthesis of free radicals thereby destroying the integrity of the membrane. Heat stress may lead to poor appetite, breaks down homeostasis of caecal microflora, damages intestinal mucosa and depression in body weight gain. Bioactives of Peppermint reduces pathogenic gut bacterial load and restores appetite thereby improves body weight in birds. Mint supplementation also helps eliciting humoral and cell mediated immunity by improving activity of lymphocytes, macrophages and natural killer cells as an effect of mint, stimulate the production of interferon against the damages due to free radicals produced during heat stress. Menthol and thymol in peppermint decreases enzymatic activity of hydroxymethylglutryl coenzyme A (HMG-COA) and hepatic reductase that regulates synthesis of cholesterol, therefore provides beneficial hypolipidaemic effect and lean meat production. Bioactives of Peppermint possess anti-congestive, anti-inflammatory & anti-spasmodic activity therefore protects from respiratory challenge.

Heat stress brings about major physiological changes in poultry birds, which negatively affects feed intake, feed efficiency, production, performance, reproductive efficiency, and disease outbreaks. These adverse effects can be reduced by following integrated managemental and nutritional strategies. Amongst these, nutritional management by supplementing feed additives plays a key role in alleviating heat stress. The usage of combined feed additive package such as HeatBeat provides cascading advantages. HeatBeat is a synergistic and power packed combination of trio of Natural vitamin C, organic chromium complex and Mint (menthe sp.). Vitamin C in HeatBeat is natural, highly bioavailable and stable at high pelletization temperature. Chromium is in organic chelated form. HeatBeat provides additional advantage of mint for thermoregulation and other benefits. Usage of HeatBeat in heat stress birds provides combined benefit of antistress, antioxidant, immunopotentiator, thermoregulatory with a sustained bioactivity. Usage of HeatBeat is highly recommended for heat stress amelioration in birds.

(References may be requested from author)