Abstract:
The present investigation was conducted to determine the impact of the dietary addition of
garlic and ginger as natural feed additives on feed intake, productive performance, carcass
characteristics, hematology and serum biochemistry, economic efficiency, and mortality of
broilers. A total of one hundred and ninety-two day old, unsexed (cobb-500) broiler were
randomly divided into four experimental groups with three replication per treatment which
consisted 16 birds. The birds were fed on two control diets (starter and finisher diets). The
garlic (Allium sativum) and ginger (Zingiber officinale) were added in levels to the
experimental diets in the four experimental groups. The first group (T1) fed on diets without
feed additives (control diet). The other groups (T2), (T3) and (T4) were fed on basal diets
supplemented with levels of 0.5% garlic, 0.5% ginger and 0.5% and 0.5% ginger mixture,
respectively. The results showed that, the diet with T4 had significantly (P<0.05) highest
feed intake, heaviest body weight gain, highest eviscerated weight with the highest
commercial cuts (breast, drumstick and thigh) followed by T2 and T3 each. The diet with T3
recorded best feed conversion ratio during starter phase and entire experimental period.
The birds fed with the control diet recorded significantly (P<0.05) highest abdominal fat
weight and liver percentages. The chickens fed on garlic and garlic-ginger mixture showed
significant increase in haemoglobin (Hb), white blood cells (WBC), and total protein (TP) in
ginger and garlic-ginger mixture. The morality rate was not significantly affected by the
addition of mixture of garlic and ginger powder in broiler diets. The highest profitability
ratio was obtained by the diet with garlic and ginger mixture powder. It was concluded that
using garlic and ginger in combination at 1% enhanced the majority of broiler
performances and their carcass quality.