Antioxidant and anticoccidial effects of garlic powder and sulfur amino acids on Eimeria-infected and uninfected broiler chickens

To study the anticoccidial and antioxidant effects of garlic powder (GP) and total sulfur amino acid (TSAA) on growth performance, faecal oocyst output, oxidative stress indicators and antioxidant status markers in broiler chickens, a 2 × 2 × 2 splitplot-factorial arrangement of treatments was used. A total of 480-day-old male broiler chickens were equally assigned to two plots. Two hundred forty chickens were challenged with Eimeria oocysts species mix by oral inoculation at day 34 (infected plot) and the other half was left unchallenged. In each plot, chickens were randomly assigned to four treatments with 5 replicates of 12 birds each, and fed one of the following diets: basal diet, basal diet plus 0.5% GP, basal diet plus 50% more TSAA, basal diet plus 0.5% GP and 50% more TSAA. The results showed that inoculation with 7.5 × 102 oocysts of Eimeria mixed species significantly reduced growth performance (P