Table 1.

Effects of a control diet (CON) or dietary betaine (BET) on Evans Blue Dye distribution in broilers housed under thermoneutral (TN) or heat stress (HS) conditions for 1, 2, 3, 7 and 10 days.

Tissues	Diet (D)	Temp (T)	Day of Thermal Challenge					SED	Significance 1
			1	2	3	7	10
Psoas Major (ng/mg)	CON	TN	8.3	16.0	8.0	14.3	29.4	11.3	D × T *
		HS	8.3	42.1	24.5	29.1	39.1
	BET	TN	6.7	30.8	16.4	18.8	25.2
		HS	9.5	6.2	16.7	14.3	31.8
Liver (ng/mg)	CON	TN	37	91	96	110	94	32.8
		HS	65	107	111	83	80
	BET	TN	128	111	106	90	80
		HS	58	141	65	60	87
Kidney (ng/mg)	CON	TN	96 a	93 ab	62	61	119	28.2	T **, D ***, D × T **
		HS	158 b	117 b	98	94	161		D × T × Day +
	BET	TN	90 a	31 a	41	53	93
		HS	62 a	61 ab	36	45	91
Spleen 2 (ng/mg)	CON	TN	2.05	2.08	2.20	2.30	2.36	0.15	T *, D × *
			(112)	(120)	(157)	(199)	(229)
		HS	2.04	1.89	2.31	2.31	2.41
			(110)	(78)	(206)	(206)	(258)
	BET	TN	2.28	2.19	2.51	2.43	2.49
			(191)	(153)	(321)	(267)	(309)
		HS	2.04	2.03	2.36	2.14	2.22
			(110)	(108)	(231)	(175)	(167)
Jejunum 2 (ng/mg)	CON	TN	2.02	2.29 a	1.90	1.86 ab	2.08	0.14	D *, D × T × Day **
			(104)	(194)	(79)	(73)	(121)
		HS	1.85	1.84 b	1.95	2.08 b	1.90
			(71)	(69)	(89)	(119)	(79)
	BET	TN	1.84	1.76 b	1.86	1.90 ab	1.98
			(69)	(58)	(73)	(80)	(100)
		HS	1.99	2.10 ab	1.87	1.69 a	1.85
			(97)	(125)	(75)	(49)	(70)
Ileum (ng/mg)	CON	TN	151	100	77	75	54 a	34.2	D *, D × T × Day **
		HS	115	68	69	85	209 b
	BET	TN	70	146	49	32	108 a
		HS	83	106	55	34	75 a

^{1 +}p < 0.10; * p < 0.05; ** p < 0.01; *** p < 0.001. Other main and interactive effects p > 0.10. Differing superscripts within a column denotes significant (p < 0.05) differences for D × T × Day on a single day of the experiment. ² Due to skewed data the values were Log₁₀ transformed before statistical analysis. Back transformed means are presented in parentheses.