| dc.description.abstract | The study was conducted to investigate the combined effects of buckwheat (BW), black
cumin (BC) and honeyweed (HW) in broiler diets on the growth, feed intake, serum lipid
profile, intestinal microflora and their antibiotic activity. Sixty (60) day old chicks
(Cobb-500) were divided into four groups viz. T1(Commercial Control, CC), T2
(FF+10% BW), T3 (FF+10% BW+1.5% BC+5% (w/v) HW powder), T4 (FF+10%
BW+3% BC+5% (w/v) HW powder) in complete randomized design with three (3)
replications, each of which contain five (5) birds. The CC feed and the FF with BW, BC,
and HW supplemented diet feed on broiler for 30 days. At the end of the study, the body
weight gain, FCR and mortality rate were calculated. It was found that T3 (FF+10% BW
+ 1.5% BC+5% (w/v) HW powder) diet significantly (p≤ 0.05) showed the lowest FCR,
mortality rate and the highest body weight gain. Interestingly, T3 decreased the serum
cholesterol, triglycerides (TG), low density lipoprotein (LDL) and increased high
density lipoprotein (HDL) significantly (p≤ 0.05). The remarkable differences of serum
SGOT and SGPT level have been found between the commercial feed and BW, BC and
HW supplemented diet. Surprisingly, histological study showed the low deposition of fat
in liver in case of BW, BC and HW supplemented feed. Furthermore, T3 supplemented
feed also suppressed total viable bacteria in the feces. We conducted the study to observe
the antimicrobial activity against E. coli by using the methanol and water extract of
combined BW, BC and HW in comparison of synthetic antibiotic tetracycline in vitro.
Interestingly, methanol extract and water extract of combined BW, BC and HW showed
the inhibition zone against the E. coli. Our results suggested that this newly formulated
feed T3 (FF+10% BW+1.5% BC+5% (w/v) HW powder) could be considered as an
alternative natural feed additive to hazardous synthetic antibiotics for safe and quality
poultry meat production. | en_US |
