Heat Stress And Approved Nutritional Practices In Poultry Industry: A Review

Heat stress is one of the prominent challenges facing the poultry industry, especially in regions with hot climates, as it leads to a reduction in growth rate, a poor feed conversion ratio, and an increase in mortality rate. This review highlights the most prominent nutritional approaches used to reduce the effects of heat stress or overcome them. Including modifying diet composition by reducing crude protein content and replacing it with amino acids and increasing fat proportion as a low heat increment energy source. This study also reviews the role of nutritional supplementations such as phytogenic feed additives, antioxidants (vitamin E, vitamin C, and selenium), electrolytes (sodium, potassium, and bicarbonate), gut microbiota modulators (probiotics, prebiotics, symbiotics, and postbiotics), and amino acids in improving productive and immunity performance, enhancing antioxidant capacity, improving intestinal morphology, increasing digestibility and absorption, promoting proliferation of beneficial microorganisms, enhancing gut health, and improving bird ability to resist temperature increase in harsh environments. The results of the studies confirm that nutritional strategies represent efficient tools to improve the productive performance of birds under heat stress. Therefore, this review recommends further studies to determine optimal doses and assess the cumulative effect of using these nutritional strategies in different environments.