Poultry production in India has become a profitable and most popular income generating sector for the educated unemployed youth. Most of the poultry farmers are interested in broiler production due to its quick returns, less space requirement and higher weight gains. The productive potential of poultry in India has not been fully exploited due to deficit feed resources and unutilization of available improved technologies for getting high productivity from the poultry at economical rate. Hence, it is essential to further enhance the feeding value of available feed resources so as to improve the efficiency of feed utilization and minimize the cost of feed per kilogram live weight gain. Phytobiotics have gained increasing interest as natural growth promoting feed additives in broiler production in recent years. These have wide range of medicinal properties with no residual side effects and are best alternatives to antibiotic growth promoters (Rahman et al., 2014). Beneficial effects of these substances in poultry nutrition are due to their high content of pharmacologically active compounds stimulating appetite and feed intake, improving endogenous digestive secretion and activating immune responses (Nouzarian et al., 2011 and Toghyani et al., 2010). Turmeric (Curcuma longa) is one of such perennial herbs which contained an active component named curcumin (Wuthi-Udomler et al., 2000 and Mashhadani, 2015) and it range from 2 to 5% of the turmeric (Bagchi, 2012). The curcumin content of local variety of turmeric of Assam was found to contain 3.0% on dry weight basis. The therapeutic properties of curcumin included antibacterial, anticoccidial, antioxidant, hypocholesteremic and hypolipidaemic (Hussein, 2013; El-Khtam et al., 2014 and Qasem et al., 2015). It also posses anti-inflammatory (Holt et al., 2005), antiseptic, nematocidal, immunomodulatory and hepatoprotective properties (Daneshyar et al., 2011 and Rajput et al., 2013). Considering the above facts in view the present study was undertaken to determine dietary supplementation of garlic powder on the performance of broiler chicken fed at different levels with feeds.

Material and Method

The trial was conducted in  the  Experimental  Poultry  shed of Department of Poultry Science, C.V.Sc., Khanapara, Guwahati with 144 number of day-old broiler chicks having uniform body weight from a single hatch.

Table 1: Ingredients and nutrient composition of broiler starter and broiler finisher

*Calculated values (N.B. Vitamin premix (Vitablend vit A, B₂, D₃, K) was added @ 20 g per quintal of diet in both starter and finisher diet.  Mineral mixture contained calcium 25%, Phosphorus 5%, Sodium chloride 23%, Iodine 10 ppm, Copper 100 ppm, Manganese 2000 ppm and Cobalt 10 ppm).

The chicks were randomly divided into four groups viz. T_0, T_1, T₂ and T₃ comprising of 36 chicks in each group. Each group was further subdivided into 3 replicates of 12 chicks. The chicks were wing banded and reared under deep litter system of management. The control group (T₀) was fed with basal diet without any supplementation and the treatment group T_1, T₂ and T₃ were supplemented with local variety of turmeric powder at the rate of 0.25, 0.50 and 0.75 per cent respectively. The curcumin content of turmeric rhizomes was estimated following a standard procedure. The birds were fed as per recommendation of BIS (2007) feeding standards to meet the energy and protein requirements during starter phase (0- 28 says) and finisher phase (0- 42 days). The ingredient and nutrient composition for mash feed for starter and finisher basal diet is presented in Table 1. All the birds were offered ad libitum drinking water and feed throughout the experimental period of six weeks under uniform managemental condition. The birds were vaccinated against Ranikhet disease at the age of 6 days with LaSota strain and Infectious Bursal Disease at 14 days of age using IBD ‘MB’ intermediate strain. The performance of broiler in respect of weekly feed intake, weekly body weight and body weight gain, Feed Conversion Ratio (FCR), Broiler Performance Efficiency Index (BPEI), livability and economics of production were calculated as per standard methods. One Way Analysis of Variance was performed by software SAS Enterprise Guide 4.2.

Results and Discussion

Weekly Feed Intake and Total Feed Consumption

The mean weekly feed intake of the present study (Table 2) indicated that during the first week of age, the feed intake was lowest in T₁ group and highest in T₃ group Similar trend was seen in second week of age, except that feed intake was similar in T₀ and T₁ group.

Table 2: Mean weekly feed intake (g/bird) and total feed consumption (g/bird)

During the sixth week of age, highest feed intake was hound in T₃ group (1084.02 g) and lowest in T₁ group (973.47 g). Thus it was found from all the weeks that supplementation of turmeric powder at 0.25, 0.50 and 0.75 per cent improved feed intake except fourth week of age compared to control group. Similar findings with respect to improvement of feed intake were observed by several workers (Sharma et al., 2015 and Hady et al., 2016). In contrary to the present observation, Kumar et al. (2005) and Nouzarian et al. (2011) reported no significant difference in feed intake between the control and treated groups of broiler chicken.

The total feed consumption per broiler for different experimental groups was found to be highest in T₃ group (3659.02 g) and lowest in T₁ group (3561.11g). This observation corroborated well with the findings of Hady et al. (2016). The increased feed intake might be due to the activity of turmeric as an antioxidant that stimulated protein synthesis (Osawa et al., 1995) by birds’ enzymatic system. Moreover, turmeric powder possesses appetite stimulant, stomachic and carminative properties (Platel and Srinivasan, 2004 and Chakraborty et al., 2011).

Weekly Body Weight and Body Weight Gain

The (Mean± S.E.) weekly body weight (Table 3) of different experimental groups did not differ significantly during the first and second week of age.

Table 3:  (Mean ± S.E.) weekly body weight (g) of broilers under different treatments

Means bearing same superscripts in a row do not differ significantly

On third week, body weight differed significantly (P<0.05) among the different treatment groups. The T₂ and T₃ group achieved significantly (P<0.01) higher body weight (685.00 and 677.50 g) as compared to T₀ and T₁ group (625.00 and 637.50 g). During fourth, fifth and sixth week of age, the body weight of broiler chicken differed significantly (P<0.01) among the different experimental groups. The T₃ and T₂ group gained significantly (P<0.01) higher body weights as compared to control and T₁ group during fourth, fifth and sixth week of age. Similar observations were made by Jahan (2014) and Mashhadani (2015) who reported that supplementation of turmeric powder in the basal diet of broiler chicken improved final body weight of broiler chicken. Contrary to the present finding, Mehala and Moorthy (2008) and Nouzarian et al. (2011) reported that body weight was not affected by dietary supplementation of turmeric powder in broiler chicken.

The mean (± S.E.) weekly body weight gain (Table 4) of different experimental groups did not differ significantly in the first, second and fourth week of age. However, the mean body weight gain differed significantly (P<0.01) during third and fifth and sixth week of age among the different treatment groups. In the sixth week T₃ group showed significantly (P<0.05) higher body weight gain as compared to other experimental groups. The improvement in body weight and body weight gain of the broiler chickens due to supplementation of turmeric powder in the diets might be due to the increased length of the intestinal villi as well as decreased pH in the intestine (Sieo et al., 2005). Turmeric decreased the intestinal microbes’ population and selectively increased Lactobacillus count (Sieo et al., 2005 and Namagirilakshmi et al., 2010). This reduction in microbial load of broiler chickens could be due to the antibacterial effect of turmeric on intestinal microbiota (Faghani et al., 2014). Turmeric also enhanced the secretion of digestive enzymes and hence improved nutrient absorption and ultimately resulting in improved growth performance (Arslan et al., 2017). These findings corroborated well with the reports of Mondal et al. (2015), Sharma et al. (2015) and Sethy et al. (2016).

Table 4: (Mean ± S.E.) weekly body weight gain (g/bird) of broilers under different treatment groups

Means bearing same superscripts in a row do not differ significantly              

Feed Conversion Ratio          

Among the different experimental groups, the mean weekly feed conversion ratio (Table 5) of T₁ group showed the best FCR values during the first (1.53) and second (1.42) week of age. On the third and fourth week, T₃ group showed the best values (1.50 and 1.69) as compared to other groups. On the fifth week, the mean FCR value of T₂ group (1.86) was best among all the experimental groups. In the sixth week of age, T₁ group (1.85) showed best FCR followed be T₃ (1.89), T₂ (2.00) and T₀ (2.18) group.

Table 5: Mean weekly feed conversion ratio of broilers under different treatment groups

The overall FCR of the entire period of experiment was best in T₃ group (1.71) followed by T₂ (1.75), T₁ (1.81) and T₀ (1.88) group. The better feed conversion ratio can be attributed to the antimicrobial properties of turmeric powder which resulted in better absorption of the nutrients in the gut and finally leading to improvement in feed conversion ratio (Ong-ard et al., 2010). Turmeric could control and limit the growth and colonization of numerous pathogenic and non-pathogenic species of bacteria in chicken’s gut resulting in balanced gut microbial ecosystem that leads to better feed utilization reflected by improved feed conversion ratio (Hussein, 2013). Similar observations were reported by several workers (Naderi et al., 2014; Arslan et al., 2017). On the other hand, addition of turmeric powder in the broiler ration did not show significant differences in feed conversion ratio according to findings of several workers (Mehala and Moorthy, 2008; Vashan et al., 2012 and Fallah and Mirzaei, 2016).

Broiler Performance Efficiency Index and Livability

Among the different treatment groups, T₃ group showed the highest BPEI (124.82) followed by T₂ (117.09), T₁ (108.50) and T₀ (101.08) group (Table 6).

Table 6: Broiler Performance Efficiency Index (BPEI) and Livability of broilers under different treatment groups

Similar findings with respect to improvement in efficiency index were observed by earlier researchers, Yaghobfar et al. (2011), Basak, (2015) and Attia et al. (2017) in broiler chicken. The higher value of BPEI in T₃ group was due to higher average body weight and better feed conversion ratio in broiler chicken during the entire experimental trial. The efficiency index of broiler chicken improved gradually as the level of supplementation of turmeric powder increased from 0.25% to 0.75% as compared to control group. The per cent livability of all the experimental groups was cent per cent 9100). Similar observations were reported by Mehala and Moorthy (2008) and Attia et al. (2017) in broiler chicken supplemented with diet containing turmeric powder as phytogenic growth promoter. This might be due to the antioxidant and antimicrobial effect of turmeric powder in the treated groups (Al-Jaleel, 2012). In addition, curcumin of turmeric had a role on the immune stimulating factor in immune system which reduced the mortality rate in chicken (Al-Kassie et al., 2011). Contrary to the present observation, Al-Jaleel (2012) found variable mortality rates in broiler chicken fed control and turmeric treated diets.

Economics of Production

The cost of production per broiler including the additional cost of turmeric powder was found to be (Rs.) 172.14, 172.09, 174.50 and 177.50 for T_0, T_1, T₂ and T₃ groups respectively (Table 7). The cost of production per broiler in T₃ and T₂ was numerically higher by about (Rs.) 5.36 and 2.36 as compared to T₀ group. However, gross profit per broiler was found to be highest in T₃ group (Rs. 35.96) followed by T₂ (Rs. 30.44), T₁ (Rs.24.30) and T₀ (Rs.17.86) group. Thus, among the four groups, the T₃ group showed best result in respect of higher gross profit per broiler. The gross profit per broiler was higher by ₹ 18.10 in T₃ group as compared to T₀ group. The better gross profit per broiler in T₃ group could be attributed to the better growth performance and improved FCR of broilers due to addition of turmeric powder in the ration. These findings corroborated with the results of earlier workers (Hossain et al., 2014 and Kassu et al., 2016) who showed reduction in production cost per Kg weight gain, increased live weight, better FCR and higher net revenue in turmeric treated groups as compared to untreated group.

Table 7: Cost of production and gross profit (Rs.) per broiler under different treatment groups

Conclusion

A biological trial was conducted to investigate the effect of feeding turmeric (Curcuma longa) powder on the performance of broiler chicken. A total of 144 numbers of day-old commercial broiler chicks with uniform body weight were randomly divided into four groups viz. T₀ (standard basal diet as control), T₁ (basal diet + 0.25% turmeric powder), T₂ (basal diet + 0.50% turmeric powder) and T₃ (basal diet + 0.75% turmeric powder) comprising 36 chicks in each group. The final body weight was significantly (P<0.05) higher in T₃ group (2134.56 g) followed by T₂ (2049.36 g), T₁ (1963.97 g) and T₀ (1900.28 g). In respect of overall FCR, the T₃ group showed the best FCR value of 1.71 followed by T₂ (1.75), T₁ (1.81) and T₀ (1.88). The study revealed that there was increased body weight, improved FCR, highest BPEI and higher gross profit per bird offered with 0.75 per cent turmeric powder in feed. Thus, it can be recommended that turmeric powder can be used as natural feed additive in feed at the level of 0.75% to improve the overall performance of broiler chicken. The effective level of incorporation of turmeric powder might be due to the hormesis effect.

Acknowledgement

The authors express thankfulness to the Dean, Faculty of Veterinary Science, AAU, Khanapara for providing necessary facilities to carry out the experiment.

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