EFFECT OF CINNAMON AND GARLIC ON GROWTH PERFORMANCE AND CARCASS CHARACTERISTICS OF BROILER

Abstract

The aim of the study is to evaluate the effect of feeding cinnamon and garlic on growth performance and carcass characteristics of broiler. The experiment was conducted by applying different levels of cinnamon and garlic with commercial broiler feed. A total of 180 one day-old of Lohmann Meat (Indian River) broiler chicks were purchased from Kazi farms hatchery, Gazipur, Dhaka. In the experiment broilers were randomly allocated into four treatments and a control group. Each dietary treatment consisted of 3 replications having 12 broilers in each of the replication. The dietary treatment consisted for 4 weeks and the treatment of various groups consisted as control (T 0 ) and the other four treatments were T 1 (basal feed + antibiotics), T 2 (basal feed + 0.2% cinnamon), T 3 (basal feed + 0.2% garlic) and T 4 (basal feed+ 0.2% cinnamon + 0.2 garlic). During the experimental periods of 4 weeks feed intake, body weight gain, feed conversion ratio (FCR), dressing percentage were calculated. Birds fed 0.2% cinnamon and 0.2% garlic (T 4 ) gained superior body weights (1958.33 a ±21.05) compared to any other group T 0

(1912.33 ab ±16.49), T 3 (1896.33 ab ±17.40), T 2 (1886 ab ±21.65) and group T 1

(1866 b ±29.01). The average body weight gains on T 4 group at the 1 st

weeks were significantly higher (P<0.05) than other treatment groups. The groups fed diets containing 0.2% cinnamon and 0.2% garlic feed (T 4 ) had lower (best) FCR (1.30±0.01) compared to group T 3 basal feed with 0.2% garlic (1.32±0.02), group T 2 basal feed with 0.2% cinnamon (1.33±0.01), group T 1 basal feed with antibiotic (1.33±0.02) and group T 0 basal feed (1.34±0.01). However, evaluation of dressing percentage on slaughtered representative birds revealed that group T 4 (57.60±0.73) had significantly higher dressing percentage than group T 1 (57.56±0.62), group T 0

(57.27±1.27), group T 2 (56.92±0.64) and lower in group T 3 (55.77±0.44). It is concluded that the use of 0.2% cinnamon and 0.2% garlic in broiler diet separately or combined resulted in improved growth performance and carcass yields in broiler chicken.