Effects of Zinc Oxide Nanoparticles on Antioxidant Status, Serum Enzymes Activities, Biochemical Parameters and Performance in Broiler Chickens

This research was conducted to investigate the effect of zinc oxide nanoparticles (nano-zno) in diets on the performance, antioxidant status, enzymes activity and some hematological pa-rameters of broiler chickens. a total of 600 one–day-old male ross 308 broilers were allocated to four treatment groups with five replications of 30 each from day 1 to 42 day of age. the birds were fed continuously with diets supplemented with 0 (control), 10, 20 and 40 mg/kg of nano-zno. aver-age daily gain (adg), average daily feed intake (adfi) and feed conversion ratio (fcr) were meas-ured from 1 to 42 d of age. triglycerides, high density lipoproteins (hdl), activity of alkaline phos-phatase (alp), aspartate transferase (ast), alanine transferase (alt), creatine kinase (ck), total antioxidant capacity (t-aoc),superoxide dismutase (sod), malondialdehyde (mda), and glutathi-one peroxidase (gpx), were measured at 42 d of age. broilers receiving 10mg/kg nano-zno had significantly (p<0.05) greater adg and birds in the 20 mg/kg nano-zno group had significantly (p<0.05) lower afcr than other groups. serum concentrations of hdl, cholesterol, sod and alp activity were significantly (p<0.05) increased at 20 mg/kg nano-zno. moreover, serum concentra-tion of mda was significantly (p<0.05) reduced at 20 mg/kg nano-zno. other biochemical param-eters were not significantly (p>0.05) affected by treatments. in conclusion, the results of this study showed the inclusion of 20 mg/kg nano-zno improved the growth performance and antioxidant status in broilers.