Mitigating heat stress in broiler chickens using dietary onion (Allium cepa) and ginger (Zingiber officinale) supplementation

Abstract

The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of dietary onion (Allium cepa) and ginger (Zingiber officinale) supplementation on growth, carcass  quality, antioxidant status, and immune response in broilers under heat stress. A total of 700 day-old Hubbard broiler chicks were weighed and assigned  to five treatments and five replicates. Broilers were maintained in a thermoneutral (TN) environment or were exposed to heat stress (HS). For 35 days, HS  birds were fed a control diet and three levels of onion and ginger powder as: 5 g/kg ginger + 1.5 g/kg onion (T1), 10 g/kg ginger + 2.5 g/kg onion (T2), and  15 g/kg ginger + 3.5 g/kg onion (T3). Body weight, feed conversion ratio (FCR), dressing percentage, and the weight of immune-related organs  improved in T2 compared to the control. Blood concentrations of malondialdehyde (MDA) and paraoxonase-1 (PON1) were substantially higher in T2 than  the control. Similarly, in the same dietary group, the antibody titre against Newcastle disease (ND) and total leucocyte count (TLC) were greater than  the control diet. The findings of this research indicate that 10 g of ginger combined with 2.5 g of onion in the diet enhance broiler growth  performance, carcass quality, antioxidant status, and immunological response under heat stress conditions.