Abstract:
In this study we investigated the comparative efficacy of blend of Olive oil, Black seed oil and Flax seed oil versus solitary use of these oils on growth performance and meat quality in broiler chicken. For this purpose chicks (n=210; strain-Ross) were offered following treatments in antibiotic free diet: A; Olive oil at rate of 1.0%, B; Black seed oil at rate of 0.5%, C; Flax seed oil at rate of 0.5%, and treatments D, E and F were prepared adding blend of oils (i.e. 50% Olive oil+25% Black seed oil+25% Flax seed oil) at rate of 0.5, 1.0 and 1.5%, respectively. The treatment G (control) was comprised of broiler feed with addedantibiotic growth promoter. The treatments were offered from 1 to 35thday of broiler age. The poorest (P<0.05) body weight, feed intake and FCR were recorded in treatments A and B compared with all other treatments, while, rest of the treatments didnot differ significantly for these parameters. No detectable differences for hematological parameters were observed except for WBCs and RBCs between the treatments. Serum cholesterol, triglycerides and low-density lipoproteins (LDL) were significantly higher, conversely high density lipoproteins (HDL) were the lowest (P < 0.05) in treatment G compared with all to other treatments.Treatments A and Ghad the lowest(P<0.05) intestinal (whole) weights compared with all other treatments. The concentration of oleic acid was highest in treatment F, linoleic acid in B and linolenic acidin C, however from the blend of oils F had reasonably good concentrations of these fatty acids.The profit was highest in treatment D (i.e. 0.5% of blend of oils) and lowest in treatment A. We concluded that addition of blend of 50% Olive oil+25% Black seed oil+25% Flax seed oil to broiler diet can give comparable growth to that of the diet supplemented with antibiotic growth promoters and it enriches the meat with reasonable amount of desirable fatty acids
