Dietary Garlic (Allium sativum) Powder Supplementation Enhances Growth Performance, Feed Efficiency, and Protein Utilization in Cobb-500 Broiler Chickens

Abstract

The dose-dependent effect of garlic powder on growth performance, FCR and protein utilization efficiency of Cobb-500 broiler chickens was evaluated. Cobb-500 broiler chicks (one-week-old) were randomly assigned to three dietary treatments with four replicates per treatment (5 birds per replicate; 20 birds per treatment). The experiment was conducted for 28 days under standard husbandry conditions. Growth parameters such as body weight gain (BWG), feed intake (FI) and Feed conversion ratio(FCR) were measured every week. In vitro digestion assays to measure soluble protein (SP) and pellet protein (PP) concentrations, nitrogen retention (NR) and protein efficiency ratio (PER) were used to assess the protein utilization. The growth performance was significantly improved (P<0.05) in garlic supplementation, with the 1% garlic group having the highest BWG (1650±55.1 g) and the lowest FCR (1.75±0.05) when compared with the control (1450±52.3 g, FCR 1.95±0.08). The protein digestibility of garlic-supplemented groups was significantly increased (P<0.001) in both SP and PP. The 1% garlic group showed superior NR (71±3.2%) and PER (2.07±0.11 g/g) compared to control (58±2.8%; 1.75±0.09 g/g) (P<0.01). These findings indicate that dietary garlic powder at a 0.5-1% level is a natural, cost-effective alternative to synthetic growth promoter in broiler production that enhances growth performance, feed efficiency and protein utilization.