Thymol feed supplementation and growth performance in a commercial broiler flock

TARIFA, M.; LUNA A.; MARIN R. H.; ZYGADLO, J. A.

Orlando

Congreso; Poultry Science Association 106th Annual Meeting; 2017

Poultry Science Association

Consumer concern on the quality of meat and meat products has greatlyincreased during the past decades. Furthermore, dietary synthetic antibioticsproducts used as growth promoters have been restricted or evenbanned in many countries. In this regard, edible plants, herbs spices,essential oils or their main components have been suggested as nontraditionalnatural feed supplements in broiler diets to improve growthperformance, products quality and even their welfare. Thymol (THY), a main component of oregano essential oil generally recognized as safestatus (Food and Drug Administration, USA), has been proved as aneffective antimicrobial and antioxidant compound with similar actionthan buthylated hidroxytoluene (BHT), a synthetic antioxidant widelyused in poultry industry. On the other hand, tocopherol (TOC) havealso proved antioxidant activity with potential as a growth promoter.Recently, synergic antioxidant activity was reported between TOC andascorbyl palmitate (AP). Herein, this study evaluated whether broilerdiet supplementation with THY and a formulation mix with TOC andAP (1:0.5:0.5, respectively) under commercial conditions have potentialas growth promoter. One day old male broiler chicks with similar BW(980) were randomly assigned to 1 of 7 dietary groups (4 replicates of35 birds each) as follows: Basal (no feed supplements); Promotor (20mgbambermycin/kg feed); BHT (1.33 mmol of BHT/kg feed); Promotor +BHT (20mg bambermycin + 1.33 mmol of BHT/kg feed); TOC-AP (0.67mmol of TOC + 0.67 mmol of AP/kg feed); THY (1.33 mmol of THY/kg feed); and THY+TOC-AP (0.67 mmol of THY + 0.67 mmol of a mix1:1 of TOC + AP). Along 7 wk, BW, feed intake and feed conversionratio were evaluated weekly. Repeated measure ANOVAs and Fishertests were used to detect differences at P < 0.05. Compared with Basalgroup, increased final BW (P < 0.05) was observed for all other groupsbut TOC-AP. No differences in feed intake or in feed conversion ratiowere detected. Findings suggest that THY itself or in combination withTOC-AP can be used as a natural broiler growth promoter alternative.