Effects of Herb Residue Supplementation on Growth Performance, Economic Return, Carcass Quality and Ammonia Nitrogen of Broiler Chickens

Background and Objective: Herb residues, residues from herbal medicine processing in pharmaceutical plants, were evaluated for their nutrient quality when added to broiler feed. An experiment was conducted to evaluate the growth performance, economic return, carcass quality and ammonia nitrogen of broiler chickens fed three herb residues. Materials and Methods: A total of 160 7-day-old Ross 308 broiler chicks were allocated to 4 treatments with 4 replications for 5 weeks. All birds were raised under the same conditions. The dietary treatment groups were the commercial diet for the control (CT) and the commercial diet supplemented with Zingiber cassumunar (ZC) residues, Kaempferia galangal (KG) residues or Curcuma aromatic (CA) residues (CA) at 3 g kg^–1 feed. Results: The CA group displayed a better body weight gain (BWG), average daily gain (ADG) and salable net return (SBR) than the other treatment groups (p<0.01). The ZC, KG and CA groups had higher productive indices (PI) than the control group (p<0.01), while the ZC, KG and CA groups had lower feed conversion ratios (FCR) compared to the control group (p<0.01). Moreover, the CA group had significantly increased abdominal fat, (p<0.05) but the KG group had significantly increased total visceral organ weight (p<0.05). Shear force value of the breast from KG chickens was higher than that of the other treatment groups (p<0.05) but the shear force value of the thigh from the ZC, KG and CA chickens was higher than that of the control group (p<0.01). The CA group showed lower (p<0.01) moisture in the broiler feces than the control group. Fecal ammonia nitrogen had no significant differences. Conclusion: CA at 0.3 g kg^–1 diet may be used as a potential growth enhancer for broilers in an open house from 7-42 days.