Performance of Broiler Chicken on Diet Supplemented with Black Pepper (Piper Nigrum) Powder on Haematological and Biochemical Parameters

Abstract

The present research work was conducted with the aim to find the different levels of black pepper powder supplementation on the performance in terms of growth, feed intake, carcass characteristics, blood parameters, overall performance and cost of rearing of broiler chicken. For this, a total of 120- day old, broiler chicks of hybrid Cobb-400 strain, were equally distributed into four treatments (T₁, T₂, T₃ and T₄) with five replications per treatment following Randomized Block Design. The birds were reared for 42 days. The birds in control group (T₁) were provided with standard diets of broiler starter and broiler finisher. However, the diets of other groups were supplemented with black pepper powder @7.5, 10.0 and 12.5 g/kg feed for T₂, T₃ and T₄ groups, respectively. Feed intake was recorded daily and weekly body weight was recorded replication wise. Gain in weight and feed conversion efficiency was calculated accordingly. The inputs of all items were precisely recorded for calculation of economics of rearing. On the 42^nd day, from each treatment three birds were selected for collection of blood analysis viz. Hb, WBC, RBC, HDL, LDL and Cholesterol. No mortality was observed for all the treatments. The results showed no significant difference in body weight, body weight gain, feed intake, feed conversion efficiency, overall performance index and net profit per bird. In terms of blood constituents viz, RBC, WBC, Cholesterol were better in T₁ group.