Effects of Single Leafy Spices on Growth and Carcass Characteristics of Broilers

This study attempted to evaluate the effects of dietary spice supplementation on the growth performance, carcass characteristics and organ weights of broilers. One hundred and sixty (160) two-week old broilers of Anak 2000 commercial strain were randomly assigned to four groups with four replicates per treatment. The dietary treatments consisted of a control (basal diet), basal diet + 10g basil leaf meal-BLM/kg diet, basal diet + 10g Heinsia leaf meal-HLM/kg diet and basal diet + 10g Piper leaf meal-PLM/kg diet. Fresh feed and water were offered daily ad libitum. Body weight gain, feed intake and feed efficiency were determined weekly. At the end of the study (42 days), carcass weight, internal organ weight and breast meat composition were determined. Growth performances were not different between dietary treatments. However, a lower mortality (2.50%) was observed in broilers fed BLM and PLM diets than in the control (5.00%). Supplementation with piper leaf meal resulted in better feed efficiency (3.32), compared to the control (3.40) and other treatment groups (3.51; 3.74). Also, birds on leafy-spice diets generally had higher head (64-80 g), wings (211-225 g) and windpipe (2.16-2.78) weights compared to the control group. Carcass composition improved with reduced crude fat (2.88-5.00%) in birds on spice meal supplementation. From the results, it appears that considerable growth promoting effect may be obtained when broiler ration is supplemented with up to 10 g leafy spice/kg diet