Abstract
Animal health depends on multiple factors, and recently it has been shown that diet plays a major role in maintaining health and preventing various diseases. One of the most important nutritional factors is antioxidants, which occupy a special place because they play an important role in animal survival, maintaining animal health, and improving its physiological and productive performances and the immune state of the body. Antioxidants work to reduce the harmful effects of free radicals and toxic products of the metabolism. Therefore, the role of antioxidants, especially antioxidant vitamins (vitamin A, E, and C) is important in the growth stages of the bird's body, as well as in reducing the stress of birds as a result of their rapid growth requirements. Poultry products are considered one of the most protein sources in human nutrition in order to solve the problem of food shortage in the world, so the poultry industry is taking many ways to reduce the time period to reach the marketing weight such as: genetic selection, nutritional improvement, and other environmental factors, but unfortunately, all of that is associated with reduced immunity and the occurrence of oxidative stress. Therefore, the aim of this review is to clarify the role of antioxidants, which are: vitamin A, E, and C in the physiological and productive performance of broilers and their ability to prevent and/or reduce the oxidative stress effects in the body.
