Effect of Dill Powder (Anethum graveolens) as a Dietary Supplement on Productive Performance, Mortality and Economic Figure in Broiler

Abstract

Abstract Background and Aim: Dill “Anethum graveolens” is considered to be an important herbal medicinal plant in the celery family “Apiaceae”. It is the only member of the genus “Anethum”. Dill seed’s health benefits include the potential to improve digestive health, as well as supplying insomnia, hiccups, respiratory disorders, nausea, dysentery, and cancer relief. This experiment was conducted to shed light the influences of dietary Dill leaves powder supplementation on growth performance, edible giblets and mortality rate with reference to its economical figure for Ross 308 broiler. Experimental: 120 one-day-old Ross 308 broiler chicks have been allotted into the four dietary experimental groups, each with three replicates and 10 birds each as randomized design. The experimental groups were classified into basal diet with no Dill powder kept as control, and 1, 2 and 3 g of Dill powder per kg of diets respectively. The birds growth performance including live body weights gain, feed intake and feed conversion ratio were monitored weekly. At the end of the experiment eight male birds were selected randomly from each replicate slaughtered and edible giblets viz., gizzard, heart and liver, were calculated. In addition, the effect of dill power supplementation on the mortality rate as well as its economic figure was recorded. Results: Data indicated that using Dill leaves powder at the level of 1 g/kg ration significantly increased feed intake (FI), live body weight (BW), weight gain (WG) compared to control and other treatment groups. Additionally, there were remarkable differences (p≤0.05) for feed conversion ratio (FCR) among experimental groups. In addition, edible giblets were better in groups supplemented with dill leaves powder compared with the control. The Dill leaves powder at the level of g/kg ration did not reported any mortalities and the economic figures did not show any significant differences among the experimental groups. Recommended applications/industries: Conclusively, dietary supplementation of Dill leaves powder enhanced the productive performance of broilers chicks especially at the level of 1 g/kg ration.