Metabolism and Nutrition: Feed Additives II

The aim of this study was to examine the effects of 4 herbal products on growth performance of broiler chickens. A total of 150 d – old female broilers (Arbor Acres) were randomly divided into 5 treatments, 3 replicates with 10 birds in each. Treatments included: control (basal diet without feed additives), Digestarom (commercial product of herbal plants), Bioherbal (garlic essence, garden thyme and other essence of herbal plants), Sangrovit (commercial product of herbal plant) and Mentofin (essential oil of eucalyptus and mentol). Treatment consist of the groups that consumed, basal diet (control), basal diet supplemented with 0.03% Sangrovit, 0.015% Digestrom, 0.1% Bioherbal and the group that received 250 mL per 1.000 L Mentofin in drinking water. Water and feed were provided ad libitum throughout the study. In this experiment broilers which consumed Digestarom had highest body weight, but control group had lowest body weight (P < 0.05). Birds which received Mentofin had minimum body weight in first week (P < 0.05). Feed intake between treatments was not different significantly until 14 d of age (P > 0.05), but in 21 d of age Digestarom and control group had highest and lowest feed intake, respectively (P < 0.05). At age 42 d feed intake was similar between all treatments (P > 0.05). FCR at ages 21 and 42 d did not differ between treatments (P > 0.05) but in 35 d, the control group had the highest FCR (P < 0.05). The present results indicated that administration of diets with some medicinal plants improve growth performance of broiler chickens.