Enhancing Livestock Welfare & Performance with Hyper-oxygenated Water

Oxygen-enriched water, sometimes referred to as 'hyper-oxygenated water', has been widely used in academic research studying the effects on animals and humans. Several studies have shown beneficial impacts when oxygen levels are increased through methods like electrolysis, injection of oxygen, or use of nano-bubble technology. Oxcel’s technology, which injects oxygen nanobubbles into water, builds on this previous work but has scaled it up to a solution that could treat large-scale drinking water systems in a very energy-efficient way. This project aims to transfer the positive lab-observed effects to field usage of oxygen-enriched nanobubble water for commercial applications and is looking to demonstrate this goal through a controlled trial using its prototype equipment in partnership with SRUC. Importantly, Oxcel has already run real-world trials of its prototype units on commercial farms over the last 12 months, demonstrating the safety of its water by applying it to over 5,000 pigs and 500,000 birds.
oxygenated water has been widely studied across species, consistently demonstrating positive impacts on health, disease resistance, growth rates, and productivity. The existing body of research illustrates the strong potential for hyper-oxygenated, nano-bubble water to greatly benefit the poultry industry as a natural and safe supplement.
Multiple papers have demonstrated the safety and positive effects of oxygenated drinking water on the growth, productivity, and welfare of broiler chickens. Jung et al. (2012) showed increased immune activity and survivability in broilers drinking oxygenated water. Shin et al. (2016) found improvements in growth rate, feed conversion ratio, blood cholesterol, and antibody levels. Oxygenated water has also been studied in pigs (Jung et al., 2012), showing enhanced immune responses during a bacterial infection.The project aims to redine water , empowering higher welfare, sustainability and profitability.
The Sruc component will consist of:
Literature research and writing a review article.
In-vivo trial 1:Digestibility trial to look into protein and dry matter digestibility.
In-vivo-trial 2: Dose-response trial to test the efficacy of oxygenated water on bird performance and livability
The parameters to measure will be as follows:
Nitrogen digestibility: DM and Nitrogen digestibility coefficients
Zootechnical data/growth performance: Body weight, Feed intake, water intake and feed: water ratio, FCR, livability
Carcass yield and quality: The carcass yield will include bird live weight, carcass eviscerated weight, breast weight, leg weight, thigh weight, wings weight, abdominal fat, and scores for white striping and wooden breast scores.
Blood biochemistry: complete profile
Litter quality analysis: pH, moisture, Nitrogen, and total bacterial and oocyst count.
Environmental record: Ambient temperature and humidity record, ammonia levels, CO2 levels will be recorded daily
Welfare assessment: 3 days prior to slaughter, welfare assessments will be conducted, balancing for treatment over the 3 days. Gait score, feather score, breast plumage cleanliness, pododermatitis, hock burns using the protocols set out in the RSPCA Broiler Breed Welfare Assessment Protocol