Vol. 10, Special Issue 8s (2021)

Author(s):
Mehala C, Kannan D, Moorthy M, Natarajan A, Sivakumar K and Ramachandran M

Abstract:
An experiment was conducted with two hundred and forty day old broiler chicks which were randomly allotted into six treatment groups with five replicates of eight chicks each and consisted of control-basal diet (T₁) and other treatment groups consisted of basal diet with oxytetracycline- 50 ppm (T₂), panchagavya -7.5 g/kg (T₃), panchagavya - 7.5 g/kg and Andrographis paniculata – 2 g/kg (T₄), panchagavya -7.5 g/kg and garlic -1 g/kg (T₅) and panchagavya -7.5 g/kg and turmeric-1 g/kg (T₆). All the birds were reared in deep litter under standard management practices throughout the study period. The results on supplementation of panchagavya and phytogenic feed additives in commercial broiler chicken at 5 weeks of age revealed significant (P<0.01) difference in mean body weight (g) and body weight gain (g). The body weight (1797, 1728.40 and 1719.35 g) and body weight gain (1748.95, 1681.61 and 1671.98 g) were significantly (P<0.01) higher in T₂ (antibiotic fed group) followed by T₆ (PG and turmeric fed group) and T₃ (PG fed group) than all other groups. The results revealed that T₃ (PG alone) and T₆ (PG and turmeric) recorded significantly (P<0.05) better feed conversion ratio (1.46 and 1.49) than the other phytogenic feed additive groups (PG and A. paniculata -1.52, PG and Garlic -1.54) as compared to T₂ (antibiotic fed group- 1.41) and T₁ (control group -1.46).