Effects of Dietary Bee Venom on Serum Characteristic, Antioxidant Activity and Liver Fatty Acid Composition in Broiler Chickens

Abstract

This study was conducted to investigate the effect of dietary bee venom on serum characteristics, antioxidant activity, and hepatic fatty acid composition in broiler chickens. A group of 875 one-day-old feather-sexed male broiler chicks were randomly allocated to five treatments with seven replicates (25 birds/replicate) for three weeks. A corn-soybean meal-based diet was used as the basal diet. Five dietary treatments were compared: (1) basal diet, (2) basal diet containing 10 µg/kg10 µg/kg of bee venom powder, (3) basal diet containing 50 µg/kg50 µg/kg of bee venom powder, (4) basal diet containing 100 µg/kg100 µg/kg of bee venom powder, and (5) basal diet containing 500 µg/kg500 µg/kg of bee venom powder. At 21 days, one bird per pen was slaughtered by asphyxiation in CO2CO2 gas, and blood was collected to measure serum characteristics and antioxidant activity. In addition, the liver was excised to measure the concentration of malondialdehyde and determine fatty acid composition. Increasing dietary bee venom in the diet failed to affect most serum parameters except for triglyceride and non-esterified fatty acids. Dietary bee venom inclusion quadratically increased the concentration of stearic acid (P<0.05), but decreased palmitoleic acid, oleic acid, linoleic acid, mono-unsaturated fatty acids, and poly-unsaturated fatty acids. Finally, dietary bee venom tended to lower hepatic malondialdehyde contents quadratically (P=0.054). In conclusion, our study revealed that dietary bee venom improved antioxidant capacity and affected fatty acid metabolism in broiler chickens.