EFFECT OF DIETARY GINGER AND GARLIC SUPPLEMENTATION ON GROWTH PERFORMANCE, CARCASS CHARACTERISTICS AND BLOOD BIOCHEMICAL OF BROILER CHICKS

Abstract

The present study was carried out to investigate the impact of garlic or ginger supplementation in the diets of broiler chicks and assessing growth efficiency, carcass characteristics, and blood biochemicals of broiler chicks. A total of 150 unsexed 7-day-old Arbor Acres broiler chicks were randomly assigned to five dietary treatments; each with five replicates of six chicks per replicate (n=30). Five experimental diets were formulated so that the control diet contained neither ginger nor garlic. While, birds in the 2 nd and 3 rd groups were fed on diets containing 1 and 2% ginger powder while the 4 th and 5 th groups were fed on diets containing 1 and 2% garlic powder, respectively. Garlic and ginger inclusion had a strong impact on growth performance characteristics. The low level of ginger powder (1%) had significant effects on enhancing final body weight (BW) and body weight gain (BWG) by 7.12 and 8.10%, respectively compared to the control group only. However, feed consumption was lower significantly (P≤0.05) in the chicks fed a high level of each ginger or garlic (2%) compared with control and chicks fed on a diet that contained ginger (1%). The supplementation of ginger or garlic in the diet of birds significantly (p≤0.05) improved feed conversion ratio (FCR) and European Production Efficiency Factor (EPEF) compared to the control