Effects of Dried Centella Asiatica Leaf Meal as a Herbal Feed Additive on the Growth Performance, Heamatology and Serum Biochemistry of Broiler Chicken

A 42 days experiment was carried out to evaluate the effects of dried Centella asiatica leaf meal (CSP) as an herbal feed additive on the growth performance, haematology and serum biochemistry of broiler chicken. A total of 200 Ross 308 day old broiler chicks of mixed sex was divided into four (4) treatment groups of fifty (50) birds, each group was further divided into five replicates each containing ten (10) birds. Group A was fed basal diet + 0% CPS (control), group B,C and D were fed basal diet + 2%, 4% and 6% CPS, respectively.The basal diet was formulated to meet the nutritional requirements of birds according to NRC (1994). Feed and water were provided unrestricted and a completely randomized design and birds were vaccinated according to the prevailing disease in the environment. The obtained results showed that there were significant (p 0.05) differences among all treatments in the values of final live weight, body weight gain and feed conversion ratio. Diet containing 6% CPS had the highest weight gain of 2072.9grams, while broilers fed 0% CPS had the lowest weight gain of 1534.7 grams. Supplementation of CPS did not affect (p 0.05) the daily feed intake and mortality rate. All the hematological (PCV, Hb, RBC, MCV, MCH, MCHC, WBC and its differentials) and serum biochemical parameters (Albumin, globulin, total protein, SGPT and SGOT) were not significantly (p 0.05) different among the treatments. It can be concluded that the inclusion of CPS at 6% enhanced the overall performance of the birds without causing any deleterious effect on the health of the animals.