The effect of dietary resveratrol supplementation on growth performance, carcase trait, meat quality and antioxidant status of Chinese indigenous chicken

ABSTRACT This study was conducted to explore the effects of resveratrol on production performance of Chinese indigenous broilers. A total of 432 female broilers (1-day-old) with similar BW were selected and randomly allotted to 4 groups with 6 replicated of 18 birds each. These four groups were fed on a 0, 250, 500, or 1000 mg/kg resveratrol supplemented basic diet for 51 days. The results demonstrated that birds in the resveratrol treated groups exhibited higher final BW and ADG, and lower F/G ratio. The resveratrol treatments also resulted a higher breast and drumstick muscle rates, relative jejunum weight, relative jejunum length, and lower abdominal fat rate. The serum biochemical parameters were positively affected by each resveratrol treatment, including TP, GLB, TC, LDL, and ALP. The L*45min and shear force values of both breast and drumstick muscle tissues were significantly reduced in the resveratrol treatments, whilst resveratrol treatments induced higher a*45min in breast muscle tissue and lower b*45min in drumstick muscle tissue compared the basic diet treatment. In addition, dietary resveratrol supplementation significant reduced the MDA content and elevated the activity of anti-oxidative enzymes in serum and liver tissue, as well as up-regulated the mRNA expression of Nrf2 gene and antioxidant genes (HO-1, GPX, and CAT) in drumstick muscle tissues. Collectively, this study determined that dietary supplementation with 250 and 500 mg/kg resveratrol improved the growth performances, carcass characters, and meat quality of Chinese indigenous broiler chickens.