Hassan Shirzadi; Zaynab Nazari; Kamran Taherpour
Volume 22, Issue 1 , March 2020, , Pages 153-164
Abstract
The current study was conducted to evaluate the efficacy of Thymbra spicata (TS) and Echinacea purpurea (EP) powders on quality of breast muscle in broiler chickens exposed to Campylobacter jejuni. A total of 192 one-d-old straight-run broiler chicks (Ross 308) were randomly allocated to 6 dietary ...
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The current study was conducted to evaluate the efficacy of Thymbra spicata (TS) and Echinacea purpurea (EP) powders on quality of breast muscle in broiler chickens exposed to Campylobacter jejuni. A total of 192 one-d-old straight-run broiler chicks (Ross 308) were randomly allocated to 6 dietary treatments in a completely randomized design with 4 replicates and 8 birds per each. The experimental diets were as follows: 1) basal diet without additive (control group); 2,3) basal diet supplemented with EP powder (0.25 and 0.50%; EP-0.25 and EP-0.50); 4,5) basal diet supplemented with TS powder (0.25 and 0.50%; TS-0.25 and TS-0.50), and 6) basal diet supplemented with Erythromycin (55 ppm). All of the broiler chicks were orally gavaged with Campylobacter jejuni (4×1011 cfu/mL) on d 21. Malondialdehyde concentration in breast muscle was significantly decreased by supplementing diets with EP-0.25, TS-0.25, and erythromycin (P<0.05). All experimental treatments also resulted in a significant decrease in the colonization of psychrophilic bacteria in breast muscle when compared with the control group (P<0.05), however, aerobic bacteria count was significantly decreased only by TS-0.25 and erythromycin (P<0.05). Other traits such as pH, color, chemical composition, water holding capacity, drip loss, cooking loss, and press loss were not significantly affected by treatments. As a conclusion, for the prevention of lipids peroxidation and the decline of psychrophilic bacteria count, it could be advised to use EP and TS with 0.25% diet instead of erythromycin, however, TS is preferable to EP, because of the higher antibacterial activity on reduction of aerobic bacteria count.