Evaluation of Biotic Potential of Wormwood (Artemisia absinthium L.) as Feed Supplement for Some Production Traits of Broiler Chicks
Evaluation of Biotic Potential of Wormwood (Artemisia absinthium L.) as Feed Supplement for Some Production Traits of Broiler Chicks
Ahmed Noori Al-Hussany and Mohammed Jard Kadhim*
ABSTRACT
Employment of herbal plant extracts as feed additives and antibiotic alternates has been a prime focus of animal production research. This study was aimed to assess the impact of aqueous extract of perennial medicinal herb wormwood (Artemisia absinthium L.) on some important productive characteristics of broiler chicken including dressing percentage, feed conversion ratio, average live body weight, average weight gain and feed consumed. For the experiment, one-day old 525 unsexed Ross 308 broiler chicks (averagely weighing 42 ± 3 g per bird) were randomly provided with different concentrations of A. absinthium herbal extract and antibiotic tylosin, and the productive traits of chicks were determined up to five weeks. Each treatment was replicated thrice and contained 75 chicks. Treatments included T1 (control), T2 (0.25 g tylosin per liter of drinking water), T3 (0.5 g tylosin per liter of drinking water), T4 (0.25 ml of wormwood extract per liter of drinking water), T5 (0.5 ml of wormwood extract per liter of drinking water) and T6 (1.0 ml of wormwood extract per liter of drinking water). Results showed that wormwood extract (@ 1.0 ml per liter of drinking water) exhibited highest live body weight and weight gain by chicks as compared to other additives and the control treatment. Moreover, all three wormwood treatments (i.e. 0.25, 0.5 and 1.0 ml per liter of drinking water) caused a significant (P < 0.01) decrease and increase in feed consumption rate and feed conversion ratio, respectively as compared to tylosin addition. However, all additive treatments did not affect the dressing percentage, although the relative weight of internal body organs (i.e. liver, heart and gizzard) increased significantly (P < 0.01) by these treatments. It is concluded on basis of overall study results that addition of wormwood aqueous extract in drinking water had a positive impact and improved the productive characteristics of broiler chickens as compared to the antibiotic tylosin, and hence is recommended to be considered as biorational feed supplement for broiler production.
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