Ali Mohammad Salimian; Seyed Ali Tabeidian; Hossein Irandoust
Volume 18, Issue 1 , April 2016, , Pages 141-150
Abstract
To investigate the effect of cinnamon, turmeric and carnation powders on growth performance, carcass characteristics, morphological and pH changes of intestine and blood serum oxidation status in broilers, 450 unsexed Ross 308 day-old broiler chicks were randomly allotted in a completely randomized design ...
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To investigate the effect of cinnamon, turmeric and carnation powders on growth performance, carcass characteristics, morphological and pH changes of intestine and blood serum oxidation status in broilers, 450 unsexed Ross 308 day-old broiler chicks were randomly allotted in a completely randomized design with six treatments, five replicates and 15 birds per each replicate, for 42 days. The broilers were fed either a basal diet (without feed additive as control) or basal diet supplemented with 3 g/kg of cinnamon, turmeric and carnation powders and 0.6 g/kg of their mixture (2 g/kg of each) as well as 0.5 g/kg of flavophospholipol. Feed intake, weight gain and FCR as well as carcass characteristics were not affected by experimental diets. The jejunal villi height to crypt depth ratio was turned out to be significantly higher in the diet containing the mixture of cinnamon, turmeric and carnation than those of control, flavophospholipol and cinnamon diets (P<0.05). In addition, the feed additives appeared to reduce the pH of duodenal digesta compared to the control (P<0.05). Moreover, blood serum MDA of chickens fed basal diet and diet containing carnation was significantly higher than the other experimental diets (P<0.05). In conclusion, turmeric powder alone or in combination with cinnamon and carnation can be considered as an appropriate alternative to antibiotics in broiler diets, and used for improving the pH and morphological traits of intestine as well as blood serum oxidative stability.