Effect of Dietary Fenugreek Seeds (Trigonella foenum) as Natural Feed Addition on Broiler Chicks Performance

Abstract

The objective of this study is to evaluate the effect of fenugreek seeds as natural feed additive in broiler diets. A total of 160 unsexed one-day Ross chicks were used in this study, the broiler chicks were divided randomly into four experimental groups, each experimental group included 40 chicks in four replicates (10chicks/replicate). The first experimental group represent the control and fed basal diet, while the other groups (from 2 to 4 received the basal diets) supplemented with fenugreek at 0.5% ,1.0% and 1.5% of diet respectively. The experimental groups were nearly equal in the live body weight at the start of the experiment. The experiment was extended up to 6 weeks of age. The results showed that the:-Live body weight at 6 weeks old, body weight gain, feed conversion ratio and protein efficiency ratio were significantly improved for chicks fed diets supplemented at o.5% or 1.5% as compared to control diet. -Higher values were obtained in average feed consumption for the groups fed with 1.5% while the lower values were recorded in groups fed diets with 0.5% and 1.0% during whole experimental period. Significant improvements in efficiency of energy utilization values in average feed consumption were recorded for the groups fed diets with o.5 and 1.5% during the experiment period.