Prebiotics supplementation: an effective approach to mitigate the detrimental effects of heat stress in broiler chickens

As a consequence of global warming and food security issues, heat stress has become an emerging problem. Heat stress causes huge economic losses in the broiler industry that negatively affects the production performance of chickens. Therefore, a variety of strategies have been examined for mitigating the heat stress problem. Among these strategies, the use of prebiotics has received increasing interest due to the beneficial effects of prebiotics on the health and production of heat-stressed broilers. The evidence from existing studies suggests that prebiotics can mitigate the negative effects of heat stress on broiler chickens by benefiting the intestinal microbiota, gut morphology, oxidative status, physiological stress response and subsequently growth performance of broiler chickens. For instance, prebiotics given to heat-stressed broilers at a dose as low as 0.025% have been shown to improve the feed intake, body weight gain and feed efficiency by 7.5, 9.9 and 2.3%, respectively. This review summarises the recent findings on prebiotics as an effective approach to improve the well-being, health and growth performance of broilers under heat stress conditions.