Effect of red clover isoflavone on antioxidant and immunity of chicken under heat stress

Red clover isoflavone already became a kind of health food and pharmaceuticals raw material. In order to study the effect of red clover isoflavone on antioxidant and immune performance of chicken under heat stress conditions, two hundred and forty 1-day-old AA chicken were randomly assigned to three groups, control, group 1 and group 2, basic diet, basic diet+red clover isoflavone (10 mg·kg^-1) and basic diet+red clover isoflavone (20 mg·kg^-1) were fed to the chicken respectively. The time of this experiment was five weeks. The results indicated that red clover isoflavone could increase the activity of GSH-PX and SOD in serum and liver, reduced the content of MDA, enhance the content of IgG, IgM and IL-2 in serum, and bear on TNF-α during heat stress. These results showed that red clover isoflavone could strengthen antioxidant and immunity, and lessen the impairing of heat stress on chicken.