Environmental temperature is one of the key factors affecting animal welfare. Heat stress, which occurs at excessively high temperatures, negatively influences growth, feed intake, metabolism, and animal health. Due to increasingly frequent heat waves, researchers are seeking nutritional strategies to mitigate these adverse effects. One potential approach is nutritional programming through the inclusion of insoluble dietary fiber (IDF), which may affect the development, capacity, and microbiota of the gastrointestinal tract. In this study, we investigated the effect of adding 20% IDF during different rearing phases on the performance and gastrointestinal tract development of Ross 308 broiler chickens raised under thermoneutral or hot environmental conditions. The experiment included 360 broilers, divided into three dietary groups: a control group (IDF-0), a group receiving IDF supplementation during the second rearing phase (IDF20-0), and a group supplemented during both the second and third rearing phases (IDF20-20). The results showed that the addition of IDF affected the development of the gastrointestinal tract, increasing its total mass, particularly that of the small intestine. The addition of nPV also affected the concentration of propanoic, isobutyric, butyric, and isovaleric volatile fatty acids in the cecum, indicating altered fermentation activity. We conclude that nutritional programming with IDF during gastrointestinal development positively affects gut structure, particularly intestinal mass, and may help maintain good production performance by supporting higher feed intake, even under heat stress conditions.
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