Vol. 10, Issue 5 (2021)

Author(s):
AV Rathod, SH Mane, DH Kankhare and SB Adangale

Abstract:
In order to evaluate effect of dietary inclusion of ginger and thyme powder on growth performance, carcass traits, blood metabolites and economics of Giriraja. Eighty (day old) Giriraja chicks were randomly distributed to four treatments with 20 chicks in each group. The dietary treatments consisted of one basal diet as control (T₁), 0.5% ginger powder (T₂), 0.5% thyme powder (T₃), and 0.5% ginger + 0.5% thyme powder (T₄), added to basal diet. The experiment was conducted for 8 weeks. Body weight, weight gain and feed intake were recorded weekly and accordingly feed conversion ratio was calculated. Blood samples were taken on 39 day of age from the wing vein of birds from each treatment. At the end of 8^th week, 5 birds per replicate were sacrificed to determine the carcass characteristics. The result revealed that inclusion of ginger powder at 0.5% level improved the weight gain and feed conversion ratio and dressing percentage and there were no significant differences in the percentages of heart, liver and gizzard in all the treated groups compared to the control groups. Blood parameters data revealed that inclusion of thyme powder at 0.5% level increase level of total protein, Albumin and Globulin, and decreased the cholesterol, triglyceride LDL-cholesterol level and increased HDL-cholesterol level compared to control group. Higher net profit and cost benefit ratio was higher in T₂ (0.5% ginger powder).