Betaine and Response to High Temperature Stress in Male Broiler Chickens

- Betaine or glycine is widely found in nature
Synthesized by a variety of plants and organisms.

- There is a growing interest in using betaine as a
feed additive in the diets of poultry.

-Betaine has also been shown to protect cell from
osmotic stress and allowed them to continue
that would normally inactivate the cell.

-During heat stress the cell of bird are subjected
to osmotic sterss.

- In such instance water is pulled out of the cell
because of a higher concentration of salts or
solutes outside the cells.

- This loss of water can cause the cells to shrink in volume and if this water loss is not correcte the cell will eventually die.

-Although poultry do not have a specific requirment for betaine the osmolytic property
of betaine be beneficial to heat stress birds.