the effect of lavender (lavandula angustifolia) essential oil on performance and blood metabolites of broiler chicks

the effect of lavender essential oil (leo) on broiler performance, carcass characteristics and blood metabolites was examined in a completely randomized design with 5 treatments (control diet, virginiamycin 10% (50 ppm) and 3 diets containing 150, 250, 350 ppm lavender essential oil) and 5 replications in a period of 42-days. no significant differences were noticed for feed intake between the treatments. birds receiving diet containing 350 ppm leo showed the highest weight gain and the control diet lowest weight gain. from weeks 3 to 6, the feed conversion ratio was significantly better in the group receiving 350 ppm leo than other groups. there were no significant differences between treatments for serum cholesterol, triglyceride, hdl, ldl, vldl, mortality and carcass characteristics at the end of experiment. the diet with 350 ppm leo increased serum calcium level significantly (p< 0.05). these results showed that leo could be considered as a potential natural growth promoter for broiler chickens. it appears that the response may be dose-related and higher levels may be needed to elicit this response. however, more experiments are needed in this content.