Effect of Dietary Supplementation of Garlic and Ginger in Different Combination on Feed Intake and Growth Performance in Commercial Broilers

Abstract

A study was conducted at AFU livestock farm, Rampur, Chitwan in 2017-18 to determine the effect of dietary supplementation of garlic and ginger in different combination on feed intake, growth performance and economics by using commercial Cobb 500 broilers. A total of two hundred, 11-day-old chicks were allocated randomly to five different treatments. The experiment was designed in a Completely Randomized Design, each treatment with four replication and each replication had 10 birds. They were fed isoproteinous and isocaloric Basal diet (BD) and BD supplemented with four different levels of garlic and ginger such as T1 (BD only), T2 (BD + 1% garlic); T3 (BD + 1.0% ginger); T4 (BD + 0.5% garlic and 0.5% ginger) and T5 (BD + 1% garlic and 1% ginger). Weekly average body weight, weight gain, feed consumption, and feed efficiency were recorded up to sixth week of age. All data were statistical analyzed using Completely Randomized Design. The results showed that overall feed consumption was significantly (P≤0.05) higher for broiler fed diet supplemented with 0.5% garlic and 0.5% ginger (T4) followed by T5 (basal diet with 1% garlic and 1% ginger). On the other hand significantly higher (P≤0.01) cumulative weekly live body weight and body weight gain (g/bird) was found for the treatment with supplemented 1% garlic powder (T2), followed by broiler fed diet supplemented with 0.5% garlic and 0.5% ginger powder (T4). Similarly, feed conversion ratio was significantly (P≤0.01) better in broiler fed basal diet with supplementation of 1% garlic (T2) followed by basal diet with supplementation of 0.5% garlic and 0.5% ginger (T4). The maximum benefit was obtained from the broiler fed basal diet with supplementation of 1% garlic (T2). The findings revealed that broiler fed basal diet with supplementation of 1% garlic powder had helped as a growth promoter contributing to the better growth performance, feed efficiency and higher benefit: cost ratio. Thus, addition of 1% garlic powder can be safely recommended as a growth promoter in broilers.