EFFECT OF ADDING DIFFERENT LEVELS OF VIT.E AND ROSEMARY LEAVES TO THE DIET ON BROILER PERFORMANCE AND CARCASS CHARACTERSTIC

Abstract

This study was carried out to study the effect of adding different levels of Vit. E as an artificial antioxidant and rosemary leaves as a natural antioxidant to broiler diet on performance traits and carcass characteristics. One hundred fifty one- day old Ross strain unsexed chicks were reared together as one group during the 1st week of age then the chicks were randomly distributed into five treatments groups. Each group were divided into three replicates with 10 birds per one. The treatments were as follows: T1 (control) without any addition,T2 and T3 included the addition of 0.75 and 1.50 g Vit. E/kg diet respectively and T4 and T5 included the addition of 0.75 and 1.50g rosemary leaves/kg diet respectively. The results revealed that treatments T3,T4and T5 showed significant superiority (P<0.05) on T2 and T1(control g roup) in live body weight at the 3rd, 4th and 5th weeks of age ,as well as these treatments were superiority (P<0.05)over T2 in body weight gain at the 3rd week of age, and in the amount of feed consumption during the 5th week. All treatments of addition showed improvements in the means of feed conversion ratio. No significant differences among all treatments in dressing percentage were observed, however T2 and T5 showed significant superiority (P<0.05) in the percentage of breast cut, whereas T4 showed significant superiority in wings percentage over other treatments. It can be concluded that the addition of Vit. E or rosemary leaves to broiler diet gives good improvement in the productive characteristics of the chicks, so it can be recommended that the addition of these feed additives to broiler rations may improve their productive performance.