Effects of Dietary Wild-ginseng Adventitious Root Meal on Growth Performance, Blood Profiles, Relative Organ Weight and Meat Quality in Broiler Chickens

This experiment was conducted to evaluate the effects of dietary wild-ginseng adventitious root meal (WGM) on growth performance, blood profiles, relative organ weight and meat quality of broiler chickens. A total of 480, 2-day-old male broiler chicks (BW = 42.8±1.38 g) were randomly allocated to 1 of 4 dietary treatments (6 cages with 20 broilers per cage). Dietary treatments were: i) CON (basal diet), ii) WGM0.1 (basal diet+0.1% WGM), iii) WGM0.2 (basal diet+0.2% WGM) and iv) WGM0.3 (basal diet+ 0.3% WGM). Birds fed WGM0.3 diet (p<0.05) had a higher feed intake (FI) than those fed the CON diet during weeks 1 to 3. During weeks 3 to 5, dietary WGM0.1 treatment led to a higher (p<0.05) BW gain (BWG) and feed intake (FI) compared with the CON and WGM0.3 treatments. Overall, birds fed WGM0.1 improved BWG and FI compared with those fed the CON treatment. A greater lymphocyte count was observed (p<0.05) in WGM0.2 and WGM0.3 treatments compared with the CON treatment; dietary WGM decreased (p<0.05) the total cholesterol concentration compared with the CON group. The inclusion of WGM increased the relative weight of spleen and bursa of fabricius (p<0.05) compared with CON, while less abdominal fat was observed in the WGM0.3 treatment (p<0.05) compared with CON. The 2-thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS) of breast muscle were decreased (p<0.05) by WGM supplementation. Overall, our results indicated that the use of WGM at the 0.1% level could enhance growth performance in broilers. The supplementation of WGM could induce a decreased TBARS, abdominal fat and serum cholesterol in broiler chickens. (