Dietary live yeast supplementation alleviates transport‐stress‐impaired meat quality of broilers through maintaining muscle energy metabolism and antioxidant status

BACKGROUND: This experiment was to investigate the effect of dietary live yeast (LY, 1 × 10(10) CFU g(−1)) supplementation on serum metabolic parameters, meat quality as well as antioxidant enzyme activity of transported broilers. A total of 192 one‐day‐old broilers were randomly assigned to four treatments with six replicates and eight chicks per replicate: a basal diet without transportation (CON), a basal diet containing 0 (T), 500 (T + LY(500)) and 1000 mg kg(−1) (T + LY(1000)) LY with 3 h of transportation after feeding for 42 days, respectively. The serum and muscle samples of broilers were collected immediately after 3 h of transportation. RESULTS: A higher (P < 0.05) final body weight and average daily weight gain were observed in T + LY(1000) group compared with CON and T groups. The T + LY(1000) group reduced (P < 0.05) the serum lactate contents and improved (P < 0.05) the pH(24h) and decreased (P < 0.05) the drip loss in muscles of transported‐broilers. Also, the T + LY(1000) group enhanced (P < 0.05) the total‐antioxidant capacity and reduced (P < 0.05) the malondialdehyde in serum and muscles. Besides, the messenger RNA (mRNA) expression of avian uncoupling protein (avUCP) in muscles was down‐regulated (P < 0.05) of T + LY(1000) group compared with T group. CONCLUSION: Dietary LY supplementation alleviates transport‐stress‐impaired meat quality of broilers through maintaining muscle energy metabolism and antioxidant status. Therefore, LY may serve as a potential protector for broilers under transport stress in the future. © 2022 The Authors. Journal of The Science of Food and Agriculture published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Society of Chemical Industry.