Effects of Dietary Black Seed (Nigella Sativa L.) Extract Supplemented Diet on Growth Performance, Serum Metabolites and Carcass Traits of Commercial Broiler

Abstract

To investigate the effect of dietary black seed (Nigella sativa L.) extract added in diets on growth performance, blood serum metabolites and carcass characteristics of commercial broilers (Ross 308) from 10– 40 days of age, a total 120 broilers were randomly distributed into five different doses treatments and each treatment contains three replications. The black seed extract were supplemented at 0, 1.5, 3.0 and 4.5% standard broiler diet and each of the treated diet was offered ad libitum to birds housed individually in broiler cages from 10 to 40 days of age. Feed consumption, body weight, survivability, serum cholesterol, HDL cholesterol, triglyceride (TG) and organs weight were measured as criteria of response to feeding black seed extract. Our results showed that body weight, survivability percentage, HDL cholesterol and dressing yields were significantly higher at 40 days in the treatment feeding 3.0% black seed extract (P˂0.05) compare to other treatments. A significant decrease (P˂0.05) in serum total cholesterol was observed in the treatment fed 3.0% black seed extract at 40 days. However, there were no significant differences observed for TG, abdominal fat, liver weight and gizzard weight among broilers fed treated diets (P<0.05). From above observation it might be concluded that, 3.0% black seed extract supplemented diet could be used for better performances of broiler.