PRODUCTIVE PERFORMANCE AND IMMUNE RESPONSE OF BROILER CHICKS AS AFFECTED BY DIETARY THYME LEAVES POWDER | ||
| Egyptian Poultry Science Journal | ||
| Article 5, Volume 34, Issue 1, March 2014, Pages 71-84 PDF (555.97 K) | ||
| Document Type: Original Article | ||
| DOI: 10.21608/epsj.2014.5307 | ||
| Author | ||
| A. Ali* | ||
| Anim. and poult. Prod. Dep., Fac. of Agric., South Valley Univ., Qena, Egypt | ||
| Abstract | ||
| Ninety six unsexed one-day old, Ross 308 broiler chicks, were randomly divided into 4 treatment groups. Each treatment had 3 replicates with 8 chicks each. Chicks of each replicate were allocated in a cage with floor space 100 x 50 cm (0.5 m2). The basal experimental diets had 24 and 22% crude protein and 3009 and 3135 Kcal ME/kg diet for the starter and grower diet, respectively. Chicks in treatment 1 were fed on basal diets without any addition (control). Whereas, in treatments 2, 3 and 4 chicks were received 0.5%, 1.0% or 1.5% thyme leaves powder (Thymus vulgaris), respectively. Supplementing broiler diets with thyme leaves powder significantly increased (P<0.05) final body weight (BW), body weight gain (BWG) from 4-6 and 0-6 weeks of age, glucose and HDL-cholesterol compared with those of the control group. Moreover, supplementing broiler diets with thyme leaves powder improved (P<0.05) feed conversion ratio (FCR) during growth periods of (4-6) and (0-6) weeks of age and decreased (P<0.05) cholesterol levels in the treated groups as compared with those of the control group. On the other hand, supplementing diets with thyme leaves powder had no significant effect (P≥0.05) on body weight at 21 days of age, feed intake (FI) during all periods, feed conversion ratio (FCR) from 0-3 weeks of age, hematocrit HCT, hemoglobin, total protein, albumin, globulin, albumin/ globulin ratio, LDL cholesterol, heterophils (H), lymphocytes (L), monocytes, H/L ratio, averages of serum haemagglutinin antibody (Ab.) titers against SRBC's at 6 weeks of age and spleen and bursa percentages. So, these data indicate that, supplementing thyme into the broiler diets improved productive performance without any detrimental impacts on immune responses and blood parameters. | ||
| Keywords | ||
| Thyme leaves; Immune Response; productive performance | ||
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