The effect of four medicinal plants on the performance, blood biochemical traits and ileal microflora of broiler chicks.

This study was conducted with broilers to evaluate the effects of dietary supplementation of four medicinal plants on the performance, blood lipids and microfl ora population in the ileum.Three hundred and thirty-six dayold Ross broiler chicks were used in a completely randomized study with 6 treatments and 4 replicates each.The diets were iso-caloric and iso-nitrogenous and contained 15, 3, 2 and 2 g/kg of dried cumin, peppermint, yarrow and poley herbs, respectively.Two dietary treatments were considered the negative (containing no medicinal plant or antibiotic) and positive (containing Flavomycin at 0.4 g/kg) control groups.Flavomycin and peppermint supplementation to the diet increased the FI and BWG of the broiler chickens compared to the control (P<0.01).Dietary Flavomycin signifi cantly increased body weight gain (BWG) in contrast to the other dietary treatments (P<0.05).Peppermint and cumin supplementation to the diet increased the BWG of the broiler chickens, whereas dietary poley and yarrow signifi cantly reduced the BWG and increased feed conversion ratio (FCR) when compared with broilers fed the negative control diet (P<0.05).Dietary Flavomycin and peppermint increased the concentration of triglycerides (TG), low density lipoprotein (LDL) and total cholesterol in serum (P<0.05).Addition of Flavomycin or peppermint to the diet signifi cantly reduced the ileal Bifi dobacteria and Clostridia (P<0.05).In conclusion, under the conditions of this study, peppermint improved growth performance and adding it to the diet could be an alternative to the use of antibiotics as growth promoters in poultry production.