INFLUENCE OF HERBAL DRUGS IN BROILER CHICKEN NUTRITION ON PRIMAL CARCASS CUTS QUALITY ASSESSEMENTS

Aim of this investigation was to determine the effects of herbal drugs such as garlic, black pepper and hot red pepper in broiler chicken nutrition on carcass primal cuts quality. Total of 1200 one-day old Hubbard broilers were totally randomly distributed into eight dietary treatments with four replicates each. Chicks were fed with three dietary mixtures: starter, grower and finisher. Dietary mixtures in the experiments were as follows: T1 (Control diet), T2 (Garlic powder 0.5 g/100g), T3 (Garlic powder 1.0 g/100g), T4 (Black pepper powder 0.5 g/100g), T5 (Black pepper powder 1.0 g/100g), T6 (Hot red pepper 0.5 g/100g), T7 (Hot red pepper 1.0 g/100g ) and T8 (Mixture of spices in ratio of 1:1:1 in total amount of 0.5 g/100g). Addition of herbal drugs had significant (p<0.05) influence on carcass quality of broiler chickens. The highest achieved body weight of chicken was in treatment T6 (2460.6 g) which was followed by treatment T7 (2442.4 g) with statistically significant differences (p<0.05) compared to other treatments. The primal cuts of the most economically important value such as drumsticks with thighs had the highest weights in treatments T7 (530.7 g), T6 (525.2 g), T2 (520.2 g) and T8 (497.1 g), with statistically significant differences (p<0.05) compared to treatments T4, T5 and T1 (438.5 g, 448.7 g and 461.1 g). When it comes to a share of primal cuts in a ready-to-grill carcass weight, significant differences were not observed (p>0.05), while significant differences in the share of wings and beck (p<0.05) were recorded under the influence of added herbal drugs. It can be concluded that the addition of garlic, black pepper and hot red pepper in broiler chicken nutrition showed positive influence on chicken carcass quality.


INTRODUCTION
Over the past decades antibiotics as growth promoters in poultry nutrition have been used in order to improve the quality of the final product (Schwarz et al., 2001;Sarica et al., 2005;Puvača et al., 2013).Although chicken raised with addition of antibiotics achieves good productive performance on one hand, on the other hand their side effects became a real public health problem worldwide (Donoghue, 2003).To improve chicken healthiness and to fulfil consumer expectations in relation to food quality, poultry producers nowadays commonly apply natural dietary supplements mainly medical, aromatic and spice herbs (Onibi et al., 2009).The positive effects of herbal supplements or phytoadditives on broiler performance (A-mouzmehr and Dastar, 2009), carcass and meat quality (Khalafalla et al., 2011) have been demonstrated.The chicken products quality on the market is increa-singly valued by consumers (Vukelić et al., 2014).Garlic (Allium sativum L.) has been widely used as a herbal supplement in broiler chicken diet because of its strong stimulating effect on the immune system and the very rich aromatic oils which enhance feed digestion (Gardzielewska et al., 2003).Black pepper (Piper nigrum L.) in broiler nutrition improves health status, increases absorption of selenium, vitamin B complex, enhances the thermogenesis of lipids and accelerates energy metabolism in the body (Al-Kassie et al., 2011a).Hot red pepper (Capsicum annuum L.) plays an important role in decreasing the deposition of cholesterol and fat in the body, contributes to triglycerides level decreasing and supports the vascular system in the body (Al-Kassie et al., 2011a).All of these spice herbs exhibit antiatherosclerotic, antimicrobial, hypolipidemic, antithrombotic, antidiabetic effects (Mansoub, 2011), antioxidant, anticarcinogenic, antiinflammatory effects (Pradeep and Kuttan, 2004), chemopreventive and chemotherapeutic effects (Al-Kassie et al., 2011a), and also exhibit positive effects on broilers production and blood lipid profile (Puvača et al., 2015).
The aim of this study was to investigate and show the effect of natural growth promoters such as garlic, black pepper and hot red pepper in broiler chicken nutrition on chicken carcass quality.

Animals, housing and nutrition
Biological tests were carried out under production conditions at the experimental farm "Pustara" in property of the Faculty of Agriculture, Department of Animal Science in Novi Sad and were previously described in Puvača et al. (2015).For experiment eight dietary treatments in four replicates were formed.Every dietary treatment included 150 chickens, which were divided in four pens with 37-38 chicken per each pen.For nutrition of chicks three mixtures were used, starter, grower and finisher.For the first 14 days, during the prepa-ratory period, chicks were fed with starter mixture based on the corn and soybean meal.Following the preparation period, chicks were fed with grower mixtures for the next 21 days, and then for the last 7 days of fattening period with finisher mixtures of composition and nutritive value which is given in Table 1.Dietary mixtures in the experiments was as follows: T1 (Control diet), T2 (Garlic powder 0.5 g/100g), T3 (Garlic powder 1.0 g/100g), T4 (Black pepper powder 0.5 g/100g), T5 (Black pepper powder 1.0 g/100g), T6 (Hot red pepper 0.5 g/100g), T7 (Hot red pepper 1.0 g/100g) and T8 (Mixture of spices in ratio of 1:1:1 in total amount of 0.5 g/100g).During the experiment chicks were fed and watered ad libitum.

Samples collections
At the end of 42 days of the experiment, 12 broiler chickens, 6 male and 6 female of an average body weight from each treatment were selected for the investtigation of carcass quality.Before slaughtering broiler chickens were starved for 12 hours, and slaughtered according to standard procedure.Immediately prior to slaughter, the broilers were weighed.Upon slaughter, dressed carcasses were subjected to measurements.Dressed cold carcasses were dissected into primal cuts such as breast, drumsticks with thighs, wings, back, head, neck and legs following the method prescribed by the Regulation on Poultry Meat Quality (1988).Primal cuts were weighed to determine the dressing percentage of the tested broilers chickens.The data obtained were used to calculate the share of individual meat classes.

Statistical analyses
Statistical analyses were conducted within statistical software program Statistica 12 for Windows, to determine if variables differed between treatments.Significant effects were further explored using analysis of variance (ANOVA) with repeated measurements, least square means (LSM) and standard errors of least square means (SELSM), as well as Fisher's LSD posthoc multiple range test with Bonferroni corrections to ascertain differences among treatment means.A significance level of p<0.05 was used.
(2009) with the use of garlic, black cumin and wild mint; Fadlalla et al. (2010), Stanaćev et al. (2011), Issa and Abo Omar, (2012) and Puvača et al. (2014) with the use of garlic powder; Al-Kassie et al. (2011a) with the use of black pepper and Valiollahi et al. (2013) with the use of black pepper and ginger in broiler chicken nutrition.As in this study, the investigation of Khalafalla et al. (2011) showed positive effects of phytogenic feed additives on the quality of broiler carcasses.

Table 1 .
Composition and nutritive value of dietary mixtures (g/100 g) *Spices are added on top on the basic diet

Table 2 .
Carcass characteristics of broiler chickens fed with dietary herbal drugs addition

Table 4 .
Share of carcass primal cuts in ready-to-grill carcass (%)