The objective of the current study was to determine the impact of a diet supplemented with herbal mixture powder (HMP) as a natural antioxidant and growth promoter on growth performance, carcass traits, blood indices, antioxidant gene expression, meat quality, and intestinal microbial load in Arbor Acres broiler chickens. The herbal mixture consists of 200g cardamom seeds, 200g black pepper, 300g turmeric, and 300g cinnamon. A total of 280 broiler chicks, one-day-old, were allotted to four experimental groups in a completely randomized design experiment. Each group was subdivided into five replicates, each of fourteen sexed chicks (7 males and 7 females). The treatments were as follows: control group without additives (basal diet); HMP1, HMP2 and HMP3: basal diet + 1, 2 and 3 g herbal mix powder/kg diet, respectively. The results revealed that HMP supplementation significantly affected body weight gain, feed conversion ratio, and performance index (P≤0.05), with optimal responses at 2 and 3 g/kg. Carcass yield and abdominal fat percentage reduction were also significant ( P ≤0.05). Blood biochemical test results showed improvement in liver and kidney function, increases in total protein, albumin, and globulin, and a lipid profile with reduced cholesterol, triglycerides, and LDL, and increased HDL ( P ≤0.001). The activities of the enzymes GPx and GST were increased, enabling synchronous measurements of antioxidant status and resulting in significant reductions in MDA. Elevated levels of immunoglobulins (IgG and IgM) indicate increased immune system responsiveness. The results further indicate that HMP modulates gut microbiota by decreasing total bacterial numbers and simultaneously increasing the number of beneficial bacteria. In addition, the expression of antioxidant-related genes (CAT, SOD, and GPX) was significantly increased. Overall, HMP is likely to have a beneficial effect on broiler production, due in part to its antioxidant, antimicrobial, and immunomodulatory effects; therefore, it should be considered a natural feeding enhancer to improve the productive efficiency of broilers and serve as an AGP substitute.
Algothmi et al. (Fri,) studied this question.