Vet World Vol.13 June-2020 Article-6
Research Article
Veterinary World, 13(6): 1050-1055
https://doi.org/10.14202/vetworld.2020.1050-1055
Dietary supplementation of Neem (Azadirachta indica) leaf extracts improved growth performance and reduced production cost in broilers
2. Population Medicine and AMR Laboratory, Department of Medicine, Faculty of Veterinary Science, Bangladesh Agricultural University, Mymensingh-2202, Bangladesh.
3. Department of Surgery and Theriogenology, Sher-e-Bangla Agricultural University, Dhaka, Bangladesh.
4. Department of Pathology, Faculty of Veterinary Science, Bangladesh Agricultural University, Mymensingh-2202, Bangladesh.
5. Department of Animal Science, Faculty of Animal Husbandry, Bangladesh Agricultural University, Mymensingh-2202, Bangladesh.
6. Department of Animal Science , School of Environmental and Rural Science, University of New England, Australia.
Background and Aim: Global trend to remove the antibiotic growth promoter (AGP) from animals contributes to the exploration of successful measures to sustain production and reduces the intestinal diseases in the post-AGP era. Plant extracts, therefore, have been used to improve performance and intestinal health. Here, we conducted a study to evaluate the effects of neem (Azadirachta indica) leaf extracts (NLE) as alternatives to AGPs in broiler chickens.
Materials and Methods: Sixty day-old broiler chicks were assigned to 12-floor pens, each stocked with five birds and divided into three treatment groups of four pens per treatment. The groups were: Negative control, basal diet without additives; positive control, basal diet with antibiotics and vitamins; and NLE treated group, basal diet supplemented with 0.1% aqua extract of neem leaves.
Results: Overall feed intake was significantly (p≤0.05) highest in the positive control. Higher body weight, higher dressing percentage, and lower feed conversion ratio were observed in birds treated with NLE compared to the negative control group (p≤0.05) but not the positive control group (p>0.05). There was no significant variation in hematology between different groups. Furthermore, the economic evaluation indicated that the NLE treatment was found cheaper than control and antibiotic treatment in cost-benefit analysis.
Conclusion: We suggest NLE might be a cheaper alternative to antibiotics in broiler production as indicated by improved body weight and feed efficiency. Keywords: alternatives to antibiotics, broiler chickens, growth performance, neem leaf extracts, production cost.
Keywords: alternatives to antibiotics, broiler chickens, growth performance, neem leaf extracts, production cost.
How to cite this article: Paul TK, Hasan MM, Haque MA, Talukder S, Sarker YA, Sikder MH, Khan MAHNA, Sakib MN, Kumar A (2020) Dietary supplementation of Neem (Azadirachta indica) leaf extracts improved growth performance and reduced production cost in broilers, Veterinary World, 13(6): 1050-1055.
Received: 20-11-2019 Accepted: 27-04-2020 Published online: 11-06-2020
Corresponding author: Torun Kumar Paul E-mail: tarundvm14@gmail.com
DOI: 10.14202/vetworld.2020.1050-1055
Copyright: Paul, et al. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http:// creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.