EFFECTS OF ESSENTIAL OILS AS DIETARY SUPPLEMENT ON PRODUCTIVE PERFORMANCE OF COMMERCIAL BROILER

Abstract

A study was conducted to investigate the effect of essential oils (Orego plus®) on the growth performance and carcass characteristics of broilers. A total number of 80 day-07 old chicks were randomly divided into four dietary treatment groups, each group consisting of 4 replications having 5 birds in each replication. The four dietary treatment groups were considered as T0 (Basal diet with no supplemental essential oils); T1 (Control + essential oilsOrego plus® @ 1 ml/6L drinking water); T2 (Control + essential oils-Orego plus® @ 1 ml/8L drinking water) and T3 (Control + essential oils-Orego plus® @ 1 ml/10L drinking water) respectively. Data on live weight and feed intake were collected and finally two birds from each replication were randomly selected and slaughtered for measuring carcass characteristics at 35 days of experimental periods. The collected data were analyzed at 5% level of probability by using the SPSS software. It was found that total feed intake (g/bird) were non-significantly (P>0.05) differed among the treatment groups but final live weight (g), live weight gain (g) and FCR were significantly (P<0.05) varied among the treatment groups. Live weight gain (g) was significantly (P<0.05) higher in T1 (2259.07±47.72), followed by T2 (2174.74±16.03) and T3 (2146.35±8.82) respectively compared to T0 (1994.08±10.42) respectively. The best and lowest FCR was found in T1 (1.54±0.03) and highest FCR was in T0 (1.73±0.005) where the FCR in T2 and T3 was 1.58±0.001 and 1.61±0.001. The present study revealed that there was significant (P<0.05) difference among the treatment groups in case of carcass weight (g), thigh weight (g) and breast weight (g) but there was no significant difference (P>0.05) among the treatment groups for heart weight (g) and liver weight (g). Carcass weight (g), thigh weight (g) and breast weight (g) were significantly (P<0.05) higher in T1 (1826.75±18.58, 316.38±6.72 and 505.50±9.87 respectively) compared to control T0 (1629.50±4.66, 274.25±8.78 and 394.56± 9.19 respectively). Cost effective analysis of the study showed that broiler of T1 (37.69±5.49) had significantly (P<0.05) higher net profit/broiler (Taka) than control T0 (20.6±1.20) and it was 31.98±1.84 and 29.99±1.01 in T2 and T3 respectively. So essential oils-Orego plus® @ 1 ml/6L drinking water can be added in commercial broiler diet for profitable broiler production.