The Response of Broiler to the Addition of Different Levels of Nutmeg and Vitamin E to the Diet for Reducing the Effect of Oxidative Stress

Abstract

     This experiment was conducted in the poultry farm of the Animal Production Department / College of Agriculture / Anbar University, for the period from 1/12/2020 until 11/1/2021 for (42 days). The experiment aims to compare the addition of different levels of nutmeg and one level of vitamin E to the diet on the productive performance of broiler from the age of 1-42 days. Furthermore, the oxidative stress was created by adding hydrogen peroxide (H2O2 ) to drinking water from 21-42 days at a concentration of 0.5% for all treatments except for the negative control treatment for twice a day,  was used in the experiment, 300 unsexed chicks (308 Ross)  at age of one day with an average weight of 40g, and were randomly distributed to 6 treatments by 3 replicates per treatment, each replicates contained 13 chicks. The treatments included the following: • T1 Control • T2 Adding H2O2 to drinking water at a concentration of 0.5% • T3 Vitamin E of 300 mg kg feed + H2O2 to drinking water at a concentration of 0.5% • T4 Nutmeg of 2 g per kg feed + H2O2 to drinking water at a concentration of 0.5% • T5 Nutmeg of 4 g per kg feed + H2O2 to drinking water at a concentration of 0.5%• T6 Nutmeg of 6 g per kg feed + H2O2 to drinking water at a concentration of 0.5%•. The results showed that there were no significant differences in live body weight, weight increase ,and feed conversion Ratio, while significant differences occurred between treatments in the weight gain and feed intake rate during the sex week, where there was a significant increase (P≤0.05) for treatment T3 compared with treatment T5, and it did not differ significantly compared with other treatment in a weight increase rate. the sixth week, significant superiority was obtained for the treatments T1, T2 ,and T3 compared with treatment T5 in feed intake. and no significant differences were observed between the treatments in the cumulative period (0 - 6 weeks) in the weight gain, feed intake and feed conversion ratio.