Effect of Dietary Essential Oils and/or Humic Acids on Broiler Performance, Microbial Population of Intestinal Content and Antibody Titres in the Summer Season

Abstract

This study was conducted to observe the effect of essantial oils and/or humic acids in broilers reared farm condition (without suitable techical equipment) during summer season. A total of two hundred male chicks broilers (Ross-308) aged one day were weighed and randomly allocated to five treatment groups each containing 40 chicks. Each grop was divided into four replicate. Chicks were assigned to the basal diet (CON) and the basal diet supplemented with 250 ppm antibiotic (ANTI), 1000 ppm essential oils (EO), 1500 ppm humic acids (H) and combination of same levels of EO plus humic acids (EO+H) diet until 42 days of age, respectively. The colony forming units (CFU) of Escherichia coli in the digesta of birds fed either the diet supplemented antibiotic and the diet supplemented with essential oils and/or humic acids were significantly lower than in those given control. However, inclusion of essential oil and/or humic acids increased the CFU of Lactobacilli compare to those antibiotic supplementing. Antibody titres against Newcastle Disease Virus (NDV) were tending to numerically increase in all supplemental diets. At the end of the experiment, essential oils and/or humic acids did not show favorable effect in animal performance. Supplements did not alter the carcass traits.