MORPHOMETRY AND HISTOPATHOLOGY OF BROILER CHICKENS FED GINGER BY-PRODUCT MEAL TREATED WITH EXOGENOUS ENZYME

Abstract

Background. It has been reported that feeding of dried fermented ginger increased intestinal villus height, villus area, and cell area in broiler chickens. It has been reported that essential oils originating from plants have antimicrobial activity which have toxic effects in poultry when administered at very high doses. Hypothesis. Toxins may destroy some organs immediately (intra- cellular) or later (extracellular) affecting either biochemical functions or structure of organs depending on the dosage and therapy. Methodology. An experiment was conducted to evaluate morphometry and histopathology of chickens fed Ginger By-product Meal (GBM) diets.  In this experiment, GBM was supplemented with a multi enzyme preparation (Maxigrain©), using 270 broiler chicks allocated to six experimental diets (0, 15 and 30% GBM; 0 and 0.01% enzyme) in a completely randomized design for eight weeks. Results. The inclusion of GBM had a significant effect (P < 0.05) on the weight of intestine, gizzard, intestinal length and abdominal fat. The weight of the gizzard increased while the abdominal fat decreased. There was also an increase in the length and weight of the intestine. Enzyme supplementation brought about a significant (P < 0.05) decrease in the weight of the breast but a significant (P < 0.05) increase in the weight and length of the intestine. Conclusion. The diets had no negative effect on most of the organs except the intestine where there was sloughing of the micro-villi caused by GBM and enzyme.