Feed & Additive Magazine Issue 4 May 2021

ARTICLE 58 FEED & ADDITIVE MAGAZINE May 2021 and maintain the performance of animals. There is now sufficient evidence globally to invest in such strategy, even though this depends of course of the level of supplementation and the formulation of feed, as well as the economic environment and po- tential savings. SUPPORTING PERFORMANCE DURING STRESS EVENTS While farm animals are expected to perform at the top of their genetic potential, oxidative stress tend to occur during normal conditions as well. Supple- mentation of natural antioxidants supports the ani- mal to overcome all kind of environmental stressors during its highly productive life. Heat stress would be a good example of stress that can affect the performance and health of animals. Several studies highlighted the effect of heat on var- ious parameters (Tawfeek, 2014). Such event had an impact on performance of animals but also on the final meat quality: • For instance, in birds, it was observed that higher ambient temperature reduced severely body weight, feed intake, and feed efficiency as well as increased abdominal fat and mortality rate • In parallel, heat stress significantly increased malondialdehyde and decreased protein and gluta- thione peroxidase, which can have a direct effect on meat quality and drip loss Fortunately, supplementation of antioxidants can alleviate many of these effects, as several results in- dicate that the supplementation of diets with anti- oxidants, can contribute to overcome the deleteri- ous effects of heat stress on broilers’ performance. As for swine, more recent research showed that natural antioxidants could be beneficial to pigs in reducing the effects of oxidative stress induced by heat stress (Jócsák, 2020) and therefore support bet- ter growth, better health and better meat quality. OPTIMIZING FORMULATION AND SECURING PERFORMANCE WITH FLEXIBLE AND NATURAL ANTIOXIDANT SOLUTIONS As a conclusion, natural antioxidants, when they are based on a rigorous process of selection and for- mulation, can be considered as a flexible tool for nutritionists, to optimize feed formulations over the time, and represent as well a good tool to mitigate negative effects of various stress and challenges. At the end of the day, using only one raw material with some antioxidant properties might be very risky due to the variability of composition and activity. Nev- ertheless, new generation of natural antioxidants, combining high quality and consistent sources of phytogenics and phycogenics (ie metabolites from plants and seaweeds) offer now new perspectives to nutritionnists, to support performance of animals, secure meat quality and reduce health challenges during stress events, with flexible and cost effective solutions.