Objective: The study looked into the effects and techniques of feeding a traditional medicinal herb, honeyweed (Leonurus siribicus) to broiler chicks in a commercially operated poultry farm.
Materials and Methods: Sixty chicks, each one day old, were partitioned into four distinct groups: T1 (Commercial Feed), T2 (formulated feed, FF with 5% (w/w) honeyweed powder), T3 (FF with 5% (w/v) honeyweed powder solution), and T4 (FF with 5% (w/v) honeyweed powder solution administered through drops). This arrangement followed a completely randomized design, with three (3) replications of five (5) birds each. The broiler chicks were fed either commercial feed or FF with a honeyweed supplemented diet for 30 days.
Results: The body weight, feed conversion ratio (FCR), and death rate were computed at the conclusion of the trial. The T2 diet was found to have the lowest FCR, mortality rate, and maximum weight gain (p ≤ 0.05). Amazingly, honeyweed powder put into poultry feed dramatically reduced blood cholesterol, TG, and LDL and improved HDL (p ≤ 0.05). Remarkable differences in serum SGPT and SGOT levels have been found between the commercial feed and honeyweed-supplemented diets. Surprisingly, histological research revealed that 5% honeyweed-supplemented feed resulted in little fat formation in the liver. In addition, a 5% (w/w) honeyweed-supplemented diet reduced the total viable bacteria in the feces. We also conducted the study to observe the antimicrobial activity against Escherichia coli by using the methanol and water extracts of honeyweed in comparison to the synthetic antibiotic tetracycline in vitro. Intriguingly, tetracycline, methanol extract, and water
extract of honeyweed showed inhibition zones of 17, 13, and 8 mm against E. coli, respectively.
Conclusion: Our findings suggested that this novel-designed feed with 5% honeyweed might be used as a natural feed additive instead of dangerously manufactured antibiotics for safe poultry meat production.
Key words: Antibiotic; blood metabolites; growth performance; histology; honeyweed
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