Effect of dietary betaine supplementation on growth performance, immunity and oxidative stress in Karan fries heifers during heat stress

Abstract

Thermal stress leads to increase in blood supply to the periphery and a compensatory reduction in the blood supply to the gut leading to increase production of endotoxins in the body causing injury to the organ and increase in acute phase protein responses in the body. Therefore, a need arises of an antioxidant that protects the gut integrity. Recently betaine, a trimethyl form of glycine has been found to ameliorate heat stress. The experiment was divided into two parts. Experiment-I (thermoneutral conditions) and Experiment–II (summer season : hot-dry and hot-humid season) were carried out on eighteen female Karan Fries heifers were taken and randomly divided into 3 groups (n = 6) such as control, Treatment I (Betaine supplemented @ 25g/d/animal), Treatment II (Betaine supplemented @ 50g/d/animal) when the average maximum and minimum temperatures were (23.5°C and 9.9°C) and (35.3°C and 22.4°C), respectively. Betaine supplementation resulted in significant (p