The effects of various sources of selenium supplements on performance, carcass characteristics, the population of ileum bacteria, blood parameters, liver enzymes, hormonal activities, and antioxidant activities of blood plasma in broiler chickens

The effects of various sources of selenium supplements on performance, carcass characteristics, population of ileum bacteria, blood parameters, liver enzymes, hormonal activities, and antioxidant activities of blood plasma in broiler chickens were investigated in an experiment based on a complete random design with 500 one-day-old male chickens of Ross 308 commercial line using 10 treatments with 4 replicates (each replicate including 10 chickens). Treatment diets included (1) basal diet (control), and (2), (3), and (4) with 0.5, 0.8, and 1.2 mg nano selenium+basal diet, respectively and (5), (6), and (7) with 0.5, 0.8, and 1.2 mg met selenium+basal diet, respectively, and also (8), (9), and (10) with 65, 80, and 100 mg Vitamin E+selenium and basal diets, respectively. Findings suggested a significant increase in carcass weights, production index and antioxidant activity of the group treated with nano-selenium compared to the control (P≤0.05). Also, total ileum bacteria count in the diets including nano-selenium and met-selenium showed a significant decrease compared to the control (P≤0.05). A significant difference was also observed in Liver enzymes and blood parameters contents of the nano-selenium groups compared with the control (P≤0.05). Furthermore, the concentrations of T3 and T4 and also the ratio of T3 to T4 in the treatment including 1.2 mg nano-selenium showed a significant difference compared to the control group (P≤0.05). The findings suggest that nano-selenium can result in higher yield of broiler chickens in comparison with met-selenium and Vitamin E + selenium.