Behavioral, Performance, Carcass Traits and Hormonal Changes of Heat Stressed Broilers Feeding Black and Coriander Seeds

Abstract

The experiment was done to determine the effects of feeding heat stressed broilers (Ross308) diets contain Nigella Sativa seeds or coriander seeds on Ingestive, panting behaviors, feed consumption, weight gain, and feed conversion ratio, live body weight, slaughter weight, carcass weight and dressing percentage, corticosterone, triiodothyronine (T3) and tetraiodothyronine (T4). Three groups were used; the first one is the control group, which fed on basal diet only and the second fed diet contains 1% Nigella Sativa seeds (black seed) while the third group fed diet contain 2% coriander seeds. The previous parameters were recorded daily or weekly during the experiment or after slaughtering to collecting blood parameters. The results explained that, there was a significant increase in feeding behavior, feed consumption, weight gain and dressing percentage while there was a significant decrease in panting behavior, water to feed ratio, T3 level and corticosterone level. Moreover, there was no significance difference in drinking behavior live body weight, slaughter weight, feed conversion rate and T4 level (P<0.05). It could be concluded that, black seeds and coriander seeds can be used to alleviate the negative effect of heat stress in broiler during summer seasons in Egypt.