NUTRITIONAL EFFECTS OF LAURUS NOBILIS LEAF MEAL ON GROWTH PERFORMANCE, CARCASS CRITERIA AND SOME BLOOD PARAMETERS OF GROWING DANDARAWI CHICKS

Younis, Mohammed; Hosny, Mohamed; Elsagheer, Mohammed Ahmed

doi:10.21608/epsj.2023.332524

NUTRITIONAL EFFECTS OF LAURUS NOBILIS LEAF MEAL ON GROWTH PERFORMANCE, CARCASS CRITERIA AND SOME BLOOD PARAMETERS OF GROWING DANDARAWI CHICKS

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

¹ Department of Animal Production, Faculty of Agriculture, Al-Azhar University (Assiut branch), Assiut.

² Department of Animal Production, Faculty of Agriculture, Al-Azhar University (Assiut branch), Assiut

10.21608/epsj.2023.332524

Abstract

This study was carried out to evaluate the effect of dietary Laurus nobilis leaf meal supplementation at different levels (0.5, 1.0 and 1.5%) on growth performance, carcass traits, and some blood parameters of growing Dandarawi chicks. A total of two hundred 7-day-old, unsexed Dandarawi chicks were randomly distributed into four dietary treatments (50 chicks/treatment). Each treatment was subdivided into five replicates containing 10 chicks each. In the first group birds were fed a basal diet without addition and served as control (C). The 2^ndgroup (T1), 3^rd group (T2) and 4^th group (T3) birds were fed a basal diet supplemented with Laurus nobilis leaf meal (LNLM) at levels 0.5, 1.0 and 1.5%, respectively. The experiment lasted at 8 weeks of age. Growth performance, some carcass traits and some blood parameters were determined in this study. The results revealed that Dandarawi chicks fed diet supplemented with LNLM at level 1.5% (T3) had the highest values of final body weight, body weight gain, highest percentages of dressed carcass, breast, and leg muscles, and the best feed conversion ratio, followed by those fed diets supplemented with LNLM at levels 0.5% (T1) and 1.0% (T2) compared with control. Adding LNLM to Dandrawi chicks’ diet at all levels tested reduced the blood cholesterol, triglyceride, and glucose levels compared with control. The liver percentage in control was higher than in the other treatments. Based on the results of this study, it can be concluded that the addition of LNLM to Dandrawi chick diets improves growth performance and carcass traits, as well as reducing serum cholesterol, triglyceride, and glucose levels. The high addition level of LNLM (1.5%) showed superiority in most of the parameters measured over the other addition levels (0.5 and 1.0%).

Keywords