EFFECT OF SOME HERBS AS FEED ADDITIVES ON PERFORMANCE, DIGESTIBILITY, CARCASS CHARACTERISTICS AND BLOOD PARAMETERS OF BROILERS

Ibrahim, Sh. A. M.; Abdel Fattah, Magda M.; El Mallah, G. M.; Elallawy, Hewida M.H.

doi:10.21608/ejnf.2019.76350

EFFECT OF SOME HERBS AS FEED ADDITIVES ON PERFORMANCE, DIGESTIBILITY, CARCASS CHARACTERISTICS AND BLOOD PARAMETERS OF BROILERS

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

¹ Animal production Dept., National Research Center, Center, 33 Bohoos St, (12622), Dokki, Giza, Egypt.

² Poultry Nutrition Dept., Animal Prod. Res Inst, Agric. Res. (11268), Dokki, Cairo, Egypt.

10.21608/ejnf.2019.76350

Abstract

Two hundreds and sixteen one-day-old Coob-500 chicks were fed various diets for 6-weeks period and were equally divided into 6 treatment groups of 36 birds each, (3 replicates per group, of 12 birds each), using a completely randomized design, for 42 days. The diets included a control diet (without any additives) while the other five diets contained sweet basil (Ocimum basilicum L), fennel (Foeniculum vulgare),cinnamon (Cinnamomum Zeylanicum), oregano (Origanum vulgare L.) and there blend at 1% level as feed additives (10 g/kg feed). The results revealed that herb mixture treatment birds significantly increased the live body weight by 9% followed by the oregano treatment by 4.9% then the fennel treatment by 2.8% compared to the control group. However, the dietary herbs significantly improved the feed conversion ratio for Basil and Fennel treatments by the same value 5.6%, Cinnamon by 6.2, Oregano by 7.7 and for mixture treatments by 9.2% compared to the control group. Basil significantly decreased the abdominal fat by 53% and the liver weight by 7% compared to the control group. The mixture and oregano treatments significantly decreased the gizzard weight by 35.3% and 34.2% respectively, compared to the control group. Basil significantly decreased the total blood serum cholesterol by 17.2 % compared to the control group. The fennel and oregano significantly increased the A/G ratio at the same value by 29% compared to the control group. Cinnamon significantly improved the CP digestibility by 3.15 % compared to the control group. It can be concluded that the mixture of basil, fennel, cinnamon and oregano at the level of 1% significantly increased most growth performance parameters followed by oregano, cinnamon, basil and fennel.

Keywords