Trace minerals like selenium are regularly added to the diet of broiler chickens as feed supplements to enhance the immune status, antioxidant defence system, meat quality, immune statues and overall growth performance. Selenium is an essential nutritional trace element having various vital role in system mediated selenoproteins. Dietary selenium supplementation in the poultry has been regularly practiced using the inorganic and organic forms. These forms have the limitations of low safety margin and long term accumulative toxicity. Hence, an alternate selenium, hence an alternate form of selenium i.e. nano selenium having greater potential as poultry and livestock feed supplement with higher bioavailability, higher margin of safety and seven fold lower acute toxicity was prepared using starch, ascorbic acid and bovine serum albumin. The nanoselenium (15-40 nm) synthesized were characterized by XRD analysis, transmission electron microscopy and UV spectrophotometry. This nanoselenium was used for the biological trial in broiler chickens owing to simplicity and easy adaptability for large scale production. The treatment groups were supplemented with 0.3 mg/kg sodium selenite (T2), 0.3 mg/kg organic selenium (T3), nanoselenium at three levels viz.0.15 (T4), and 0.3 (T5) and 0.6 mg/kg (T6) and T1 group was the control, fed with the basal diet alone. Blood was collected at the end of fourth and sixth weeks and the blood glucose, total cholesterol, triglycerides and thyroid hormone were estimated. The mean plasma glucose, total cholesterol and triglycerides did not differ significantly between treatment and control groups at the end of both fourth and sixth weeks of age. However, these parameters showed an increasing trend from the fourth to sixth week. The triiodothyronine levels and the thyroid hormone activation ratio showed an increasing trend, while thyroxine level exhibited decreasing trend with the level of nanoSe supplementation. The organic and nanoSe supplementation at 0.3 and 0.6 mg/kg might have favoured an efficient conversion of thyroxine to triiodothyronine than inorganic Se and the control group. Hence, it could be inferred that supplementing the nanoselenium (0.3 – 0.6mg/kg diet) did not alter the blood biochemical constituents. The organic and nanoselenium supplementation at 0.3 and 0.6 mg/kg resulted in efficient conversion of thyroxine to triiodothyronine and increased the triiodothyronine level compared to inorganic selenium supplemented and control groups with minimal risk of toxicity and better bioavailability.

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