Castor and Propolis Extracts as Antibiotic Alternatives to Enhance Broiler Performance, Intestinal Microbiota and Humoral Immunity

This study to explore the impact of the addition of castor extract (CE), propolis extract (PE) and the castor and propolis extracts mix (CE+PE) as antibiotic alternatives in broiler diets from 1-35 day of age. A total 250 one day old male Arbor acres broiler chicks were partitioned into five gatherings, five replicates of ten chicks each. Five experimental diets were formulated, diet one was a basal eating regimen with no addition (control group), diets 2-5 were the control diet supplemented with antibiotic 1 g/Kg diet, CE 1.5 g/Kg diet, PE 1.5 g/Kg diet and mixture of CE 0.75 and PE 0.75 g/Kg diet, respectively. Growth performance, carcass characteristics, intestinal parameters, intestinal microbiota and the immune response have been measured. The results showed that at grower, finisher and overall periods, chicks fed diets containing CE and CE+PE were significantly (P<0.05) recorded the best body weight gain (BWG) and feed conversion ratio (FCR) compared to the control group. In addition to the similarity of significantly (P<0.05) improvement of BWG and FCR recorded between the chicks fed diets containing either PE or antibiotic compared to the control. Birds fed diets containing CE, CE+PE recorded the best intestinal length, diameter and zero lesion score compared to the other treatments. In addition the birds fed CE and CE+PE measured the highest Enumeration of Lactic acid bacteria (beneficial bacteria) and nil for intestinal colonization of Clostridium perfringens (pathogenic bacteria) compared to all other treatments. Furthermore, the best improvement in the immune response against both of Newcastle (ND) and avian flu (H5) vaccine in the birds fed diets containing CE and CE+PE. Finally, it could be concluded that, the addition of CE or CE+PE to the broiler’s diet gave superior in all measurements than the addition of antibiotic. Also, using of PE gave the comparable results to the antibiotic treatment. Therefore, these more effective and safety materials have to use instead of using antibiotic as growth promoter in broiler diets.