Effects of an Addition of Different Essential Oils and Their Combinations to Diets on Performance and Carcass Characteristics Parameters in Broilers

Abstract

This study was conducted to determine the effect of dietary supplementation of thymus (Thymus vulgaris L.), rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis L.) and French lavender (Lavandua stoechas L.) essential oils and their mixtures on body weight and body weight gain, feed consumption, feed conversion ratio, carcass characteristics in broiler. A total of one day old 640 broiler chicks (Ross 308) were used divided into 8 groups each having five replicates, ramdomly. There were 80 chicks in each experimental group. The experimental diets were consisted of control (0 mg/kg), addition to thymus essential oil (50 mg/kg), rosemary essential oil (50 mg/kg), lavandula essential oil (50 mg/kg) tymus + rosemary (25+25 mg/kg), tymus + lavandula (25+25 mg/kg), rosemary + lavandula (25+25 mg/kg), tymus + rosemary + lavandula (16.7+16.7+16.7 mg/kg), respectively. Feed and water were provided as ad libitum. Experimental period was six weeks. The according to results that dietary different essential oil and their combinations did not significantly effect on body weight, body weight gain, feed consumption, feed conversion ratio and carcass characteristics.