Formulation of Poultry Diet to Improve Immune Response: A Review

Abstract

Early in the past, poultry diet was mainly formulated to

meet maintenance and production requirements, so the

focus was on productive performance, and health of birds

expected to be involved within these requirements.

Thereafter the use of antibiotics as feed additives at subtherapeutic

dose was introduced to increase productivity by

reducing bacterial colony count in the gut and improving

gut equilibrium. That means more concern about health of

birds. Recently, arises of poultry welfare concern in

addition to the ban of the use of antibiotics as feed additives

by European Union from 2006, rushed producers and

nutritionists into more concentration on health of birds and

immunity when they formulate poultry diets. Hence two

ways were adopted to improve bird health and immunity by

feed formulation without supplementation of antibiotics as

growth promoters. The first one is by using antibiotic

alternatives as growth promoters. The other one, which

emerges recently, is formulation of feed to meet the needs

of cells of the immune system. This means studying its

needs for nutrients such as protein, energy, amino acids,

vitamins and minerals. There is also, feeding of infected

birds when the diet should be formulated in a way to avoid

exacerbating the condition by feeding microorganisms and

help them to proliferate. This review aims to discuss the

role of nutrients and feed formulation in improving poultry

health and immunity either through meeting requirements of

cells of the immune system or through antibiotic

alternatives supple