Effect of Chinese Herbal Medicine Additives on Production Performance and Nutrient Metabolism of Broilers

To study the feasibility of substitute antibiotics and the optimum adding level of Chinese herbal medicine,Avian broilers were used in the experiment.Five test groups and a control group were designed.Three compound Chinese herbal medicine additives PⅠ,PⅡ and PⅢ were added respectively to basal diet in proportion of 0.07%,0.09%,0.12%.At the same time,The control group was fed with basal diet and two antibiotic groups were provided with apramycin sulfate and bacitracin zinc respectively,which were used as comparison.After feeding six weeks and two periods of metabolic experiments,the result showed that apramycin sulfate additive group had the best performance at 0 to 3 and 3 to 6 weeks age,PⅠ(0.09%) additive had the best performance at 0 to 3 weeks age,while PⅢ(0.12%)had the best performance at 3 to 6 weeks age,and there was no obvious difference between Chinese herbal medicine group and apramycin sulfate group.These results indicated that Chinese herbal medicine replacing antibiotic was feasible,through improving metabolizable energy of the diet and metabolic rates of dry matter and crude protein,increasing digestion and absorption rates to nutriments,Chinese herbal medicine additives could improve the growth rate.