Effect of feeding ginger (Zingiber officinale) powderon broiler performance

Abstract

The study targeted effect of addition of ginger root powder as natural feed additive on growth performance of broiler chicks. The experiment was carried out on Two hundred and sixty unsexed one-day-old broiler chicks strain (Vencobb) for a period of fourty two days. In addition to the control diet (0 % ginger root powder) another diet were formulated to meet the nutritional requirement of broiler chick with graded level of ginger root powder 1 %. The starter ration was fed during 0-3 weeks contained 23.06 per cent crude protein and 2800.14 Kcal/kg metabolizable energy (ME) and finisher diet was offered during 4-6 weeks containing 20.09 per cent crude protein and 2899.65 Kcal/kg metabolizable energy. The control group (T1) was without ginger powder while (T2) was having 1 per cent ginger powder. At the end of sixth week average cumulative body weights for groups T1 and T2 were 1103.35 and 1146.97 g respectively, indicating highest body weight of birds in one per cent ginger powder. The average weekly gain in body weight at the end of sixth week for treatment groups T1 & T2 were 264.4g and 216.3g respectively. However, gain in weight was non-significant from each other group. Weekly gain in weight was higher in T2 group fed one per cent ginger powder followed by T1 group. The average feed consumption per bird was 606.6 and 652.9g/bird/week in T1and T2 group respectively.However, the feed conversion ratio in sixth week was 2.6 and 3.3 recorded for T1 and T2 group respectively. The feed conversion ratio was significantly (P