The effect of dietary Glutamine supplementation on performance and blood antioxidant status of broiler chickens under continuous heat stress condition

Effects of different levels of 0.0 Glutamine (ZG), 0.25 (LG), 0.50 (MG) and 1 percent (HG) were investigated on performance and blood antioxidant status of broiler chickens under heat stress condition. ZG and MG birds showed higher for Feed intake (FI) than LG and HG birds during the first week period (P<0.05). No significant differences were observed between the treatments for Feed intake (FI) during the whole the experimental period (P>0.05). MG and HG birds showed higher body weight gain (BWG) than ZG and LG birds during the whole period (P<0.05). No significant differences were observed between the treatments for BWG during the weekly the experimental period (P>0.05). Moreover, no significant differences were observed for FCR between the treatments during the weekly and whole the experimental periods (P>0.05). None of the blood total antioxidant capacity (TAC), Malondialdehyde (MDA) content and superoxide dismutase (SOD) and glutathione peroxidase (GPX) activities were affected by dietary treatments at week 6 of age (P>0.05). It was concluded that although dietary Glutamine consumption can improve the performance of broiler chickens during the whole period under heat stress but it doesn’t affect the performance during weekly period or blood antioxidant indices at week 6 of age.