Chelating forms of microelements in poultry nutrition

The aim of this review was to analyse the available literature on the effects of the use of microelements and their chelated forms on performance parameters of poultry as well as the cholesterol content in the tissues of broiler chickens. Published research has indicated that the significantly lower levels of organic minerals had a positive influence on the production performance of meat poultry and improved the production performance of laying hens and their heavy line hybrid parents. This has major impacts not only in terms of more efficient utilisation of chelated minerals in poultry diets, but also for less excretion of unused inorganic minerals into the environment, which is a major problem in many countries.