ISSUE FOCUS 66 FEED & ADDITIVE MAGAZINE March 2025 “Antioxidant enzymes like superoxide dismutase are significant because they ensure that poultry can effectively address free radicals and the associated oxidative stress a chick’s body endures that comes with removing these free radicals from the body. Essential trace minerals copper, manganese, and zinc are all important co-factors for this cycle.” It is a well-known fact that chick quality is very much affected by nutrition and management of breeder stock. Immune system development begins long before the chick hatches with a cascade of hormones and enzyme activity—but it can also be influenced even before the hen lays that egg. Essential trace minerals play a significant role in the development and performance of a healthy, vigorous young chicken. In high-performing animals, such as modern broilers, these essential trace minerals act as co-factors to hundreds of enzymes and other proteins. For example, zinc plays a critical role in testosterone levels, and carbonic anhydrase (a zinc-containing enzyme) carries carbon dioxide back to the lungs for expulsion. In another example, copper drives lysyl oxidase enzymes, which help build and maintain elastic tissues like collagen. Antioxidant enzymes like superoxide dismutase are significant because they ensure that poultry can effectively address free radicals and the associated oxidative stress a chick’s body endures that comes with removing these free radicals from the body. Essential trace minerals copper, manganese, and zinc are all important co-factors for this cycle. AFFECTING EPIGENETICS THROUGH DIET Changes in heritable phenotypes without altering the DNA are known as epigenetics; a change in the frequency wherein DNA sequences allow themselves to be exposed for copying. The diet can manipulate epigenetic pathways, resulting in profound effects on chick survival and vigor, which impacts lifetime performance.1 Superior broiler chick performance can be improved by systematically turning on genetic switches in breeding hens which results in improved health and development for their chicks.1 Epigenetics is also known as “maternal programming” and “maternal feeding”. The diet of the hen effectively prepares her progeny for the environment they will be born into by changing how frequently DNA is expressed while leaving the DNA itself unchanged. OPTIMIZING BROILER CHICK PERFORMANCE BEFORE THEY HATCH Anna Fe Rose Perino Poultry Solutions Manager – Asia Novus
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTUxNjkxNQ==