Division of Livestock Production and Management, Faculty of Veterinary Sciences and Animal Husbandry, Sher-E-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology of Kashmir, Shuhama, Srinagar-190006, India
*e-mail: azmatalamkhan@gmail.com
Online published on 16 December, 2020.
Essential oils are the bioactive substances having potential applications as replacement for antibiotic growth promoters in the poultry diet. The aim of the present study was to determine the effect of dietary supplementation of essential oils (mixture of peppermint, eucalyptus, lavender and calendula oils) in liquid form on performance of broiler chicken. 144 one week old broiler chicks were utilized for the study and distributed into 4 treatment groups, each having 3 replicates of 12 chicks each. Birds in the control group (T1) were fed the basal diet whereas in other treatment groups basal diet was supplemented with 1% (T2), 1.5% (T3) and 2% (T4) essential oils. Broiler chicken fed diets supplemented with essential oils showed a significantly (p<0.05) linear improvement in the body weight gain of birds compared to control. Highest body weight gain of 1489.8±11.7 was observed in the group wherein 2% essential oils were supplemented in the diet (T4). There was a significant (p<0.05) decrease in the cumulative feed consumption in the birds among different treatment groups compared to control. Feed conversion ratio (FCR) improved in all the treatment groups wherein essential oils were provided compared to control with best FCR of 1.86±0.04 in T4. It may be concluded that essential oils proved to be a good substitute to antibiotic growth promoters in improving the performance of broiler chicken.
Body weight, Broiler chicken, Diet, Essential oils, FCR
