Dietary sodium bicarbonate, cool temperatures, and feed withdrawal: impact on arterial and venous blood-gas values in broilers

Department of Poultry Science, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, Arkansas 72701, USA. rwideman@ark.edu

Sodium bicarbonate (NaHCO3) has been used successfully in mammals and birds to alleviate pulmonary hypertension. Experiment 1 was designed to provide measurements of arterial and venous blood-gas values from unanesthetized male broilers subjected to a cool temperature (16 degrees C) challenge and fed either a control diet or the same diet alkalinized by dilution with 1% NaHCO3. The incidences of pulmonary hypertension syndrome (PHS, ascites) for broilers fed the control or bicarbonate diets were 15.5 and 10.5%, respectively (P = 0.36, NS). Non-ascitic broilers fed the control diet were heavier than those fed the bicarbonate diet on d 49 (2,671 vs. 2,484 g, respectively); however, other comparisons failed to reveal diet-related differences in heart weight, pulse oximetry values, electrocardiogram amplitudes, or blood-gas values (P > 0.05). When the data were resorted into categories based on right:total ventricular weight ratios (RV:TV) indicative of normal (RV:TV < 0.28) or elevated (RV:TV > or = 0.28) pulmonary arterial pressures, broilers with elevated RV:TV ratios had poorly oxygenated arterial blood that was more acidic, had high partial pressure of CO2 (PCO2), and had higher HCO3 concentrations when compared with broilers with normal RV:TV ratios. Experiment 2 was conducted to determine if metabolic variations associated with differences in feed intake or environmental temperature potentially could mask an impact of diet composition on blood-gas values. Male broilers maintained at thermoneutral temperature (24 degrees C) either received feed ad libitum or had the feed withdrawn > or = 12 h prior to blood sampling. Broilers fed ad libitum had lower venous saturation of hemoglobin with O2, higher venous PCO2, and higher arterial HCO3 concentrations than broilers subjected to feed withdrawal. Broilers in experiment 2 fed ad libitum and exposed to cool temperatures (16 degrees C) had lower arterial partial pressure of O2 and higher venous PCO2 than broilers fed ad libitum and maintained at 24 degrees C. Overall, these results demonstrate that changes in diet composition (control vs. 1% NaHCO3 diets) had minimal impact on arterial and venous blood-gas variables when compared with the more dramatic differences associated with feed intake (ad libitum vs. > or = 12 h withdrawal), environmental temperature (24 vs. 16 degrees C), and the pathogenesis associated with PHS (RV:TV < 0.28 vs. > or = 0.28).

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