Behavior, welfare and performance of broiler chicks fed dietary essential oils as growth promoter

Abstract EN

One hundred fifty day-old Ross broiler chicks were used in this experiment.

Chicks were weighed on arrival and randomly assigned to five dietary treatments (15 birds per pen) with two replicates for each treatment.

The dietary treatments were consists of basal diet without additive (control), basal diet supplemented with 200 mg/kg essential oils of garlic (garlic group), basal diet supplemented with 200 mg/kg essential oils of ginger (ginger group), basal diet supplemented with 200 mg/kg essential oils of thyme (thyme group) and the (anti biotic group) which received basal diet supplemented with 10g/kg zinc bacitracin.

Dietary treatment started from day one to day 46 of age.

Behavioral observation was carried out twice daily, two days a week for 6 consecutive weeks.

Body weight (BW) and Feed intake per pen were measured weekly, from which body weight gain (BWG) and feed conversion ratio (FCR) were measured.

At the end of experiment, fear responses, differential leucocytic count, Hb, PCV and selected visceral organs were assayed.

Also, dead birds and those showed lameness were recorded.

Results revealed that birds in garlic and thyme exhibited higher feeding behavior.

Control birds showed less resting, more walking and standing behaviors.

BW, BWG and FCR were significantly influenced by dietary treatments.

Garlic and thyme improved productive performance and could be used as alternative for an antibiotic growth promoter.

Ginger group showed worst productive performance, however it not differed significantly from control group.

Ginger at 200 mg/kg is not suitable feed additives as growth promoter.

Garlic group showed highest bursal weight and lowest liver weight.

Supplementation of diet with essential oils (garlic, ginger and thyme) and antibiotic resulted in improved welfare (reduce stress and decrease fear responses).

Dietary treatments had neither effect on percentage of birds showed lameness nor died ones.