22 Nov Spirulina in Feed Supplements
Since small amount of Spirulina biomass can positively affect the physiology of animals and in particular boosting of their immune system, Spirulina Single Cell Protein has been considered for the use as a potential supplement to livestock feed (**74).
About one third of the world compound feed production is for poultry and this new green marketplace has challenged manufacturers to formulate feeds using high quality components including Spirulina in order to develop enhanced immune systems in animals to resist disease without requiring antibiotics.
It has been shown that chicken feed dietary Spirulina upregulated macrophage phagocytic activity implying that Spirulina may enhance the function of mononuclear phagocytic system thereby increasing the disease resistance potential of chickens.
In addition, Spirulina can also be used as a dietary additive to increase the yellowness and redness of broiler chicken flesh because of its high content in pigments (**67, **68, **69).
Similar studies for the use of Spirulina as a supplement for aquaculture feeds have shown that fish feeding with Spirulina resulted in improving of body weight, better survival rates, reduced medication requirements and improvement of quality and coloration (**15, **72, **73).
(**) Literature on the subject
