Abstract
The study aims to evaluate the effects of ginger root powder and apple cider vinegar as natural feed additives on growth performance, meat quality, antimicrobial activity, and blood parameters of broiler chicken. A total of 450 one-day-old unsexed broiler chicks (Ross) were obtained from commercial hatchery and randomly distributed into three groups. Each group contained 3 replicates of 50 chicks. The 3 groups were randomly allocated to 3 treatments, where they were offered apple cider vinegar, Tv, ginger group, Tg, and control group, Tc. All the birds were offered a starter diet first 21 days filled by a grower diet from 22nd to 35th day and thereafter on a finisher diet up to day 35. There was no significant difference in thawing breast weight, muscle weight, water holding capacity, and colour of the broiler chickens supplemented with ginger root and apple cider vinegar. The bacterial colonies obtained from heart, lungs, and air sacs showed a significant difference between the bacterial colonies of lungs and heart and between colonies of lungs and liver. The final body weight between the three treatments was not affected by the natural feed additive supplementation. However, there was no significant impact of ginger root and apple cider vinegar supplementation on broiler serum total protein, total cholesterol, triglyceride (Tri), ALT, and AST levels. The results concluded that herbal natural feed additives have negative impact on growth performance, meat quality, antimicrobial activity, and blood parameters of broiler chickens.Keywords: Antimicrobial activity, Growth performance, Meat Quality
Highlights
Antimicrobial compounds are commonly added to poultry diets for growth promotion and disease control at lower therapeutic doses on the basis of the observations made since 1946 (Demir et al, 2005; Kim et al, 2008; Elagib et al, 2015)
It has been shown that the use of antibiotic growth promoters among the poultry feed have been banned since 2006, they play a beneficial role in growth performance and disease prevention among the broiler chickens by developing resistance in bacteria and presence of drug residues in meat (Gilani et al, 2018)
The effects of dietary ginger powder and apple cider vinegar supplementation on broiler feed intake, total body weight gain, and final body weight have been presented in table 2
Summary
Antimicrobial compounds are commonly added to poultry diets for growth promotion and disease control at lower therapeutic doses on the basis of the observations made since 1946 (Demir et al, 2005; Kim et al, 2008; Elagib et al, 2015). It has been shown that the use of antibiotic growth promoters among the poultry feed have been banned since 2006, they play a beneficial role in growth performance and disease prevention among the broiler chickens by developing resistance in bacteria and presence of drug residues in meat (Gilani et al, 2018). Natural products of plant origin, like spices, herbs, and many plant extracts can be used as alternative to antibiotics for growth promotion to improve broiler performance (Hernandez et al, 2004). Herbal extraction is considered as a useful growth promoter of similar effects, which is similar to antibiotics, when used in broiler feeds (Elamin et al, 2015). The earliest known use of vinegar was more than 10,000 years ago. The potential health benefits of vinegar varieties have led the researchers to further consider this food product that is being used since long
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
