Research On Animal Production

     In order to evaluate effect of dietary garlic powder or fresh ground garlic on performance and immune response of broiler chickens, 240 male one-day-old broiler chicks (ROSS 308) were used in a completely randomized design with six treatments of four replicates each. Six is ocaloric and is onitrogenous dietary treatments were prepared as follow: 1) basal diet (control), 2) basal diet + 10 ppm avilamycin, 3) basal diet + 0.25% garlic powder, 4) basal diet + 0.25% fresh ground garlic; 5) basal diet + 0.5% garlic powder and 6) basal diet + 0.5% fresh ground garlic. Feed consumption and weight gain were recorded weekly and feed efficiency was calculated. On d 42, two birds from each replicate were euthanized by cervical dislocation. Digestive organs, spleen and bursa of Fabricius were weighed separately. Differentiate leucocytes counts as well as PCV measurement was also done using two blood smears from each replicate on d 40. For evaluation of cutaneous basophil hypersensitivity (CBH) response, phytohemagglutininwas injected into toe webon d 40.No significant difference were observed on feed consumption, weight gain, and feed to gain ratio, among treatment groups (p>0.05). Supplementation of the diet with 0.25% fresh ground garlic significantly reduced heterophils to lymphocytes ratio in contrast to control group (p<0.05). Dietary supplementation with avilamycin or 0.25% fresh ground garlic, significantly reduced CBH response at 12 hrs post injection, compared to control group (p<0.05). It seems that garlic powder (0.5% of the diet) would be able to attenuate stress in broiler chickens. Furthermore, regarding CBH response, it seems that dietary fresh ground garlic (0.25% of the diet) would be effective in reducing gallery reactions.