effects of dietary inclusion of the encapsulated thyme and oregano essential oils mixture and probiotic on growth performance, immune response and intestinal morphology of broiler chickens

This study was conducted to investigate the effects of dietary inclusion of theencapsulated thyme essential oil (teo), oregano essential oil (oeo) mixtureand probiotic on growth performance, immune response and intestinalmorphology of broiler chickens. a total of 490 one-day-old ross 308 broilerchicks were randomly divided into seven treatments consisting of fivereplicates (n=14). birds were fed with 1) basal diet (control), and a basal dietcontaining; 2) 10 mg avilamicine antibiotic, 3) 200 mg/kg encapsulatedteo+oeo mixture, 4) 200 mg/kg non-capsulated teo+oeo mixture, 5)pronigeb® (probiotic), 6) pronigeb® with 200 mg/kg non-capsulatedteo+oeo mixture and 7) pronigeb® with 200 mg/kg encapsulatedteo+oeo mixture. results revealed that birds fed diet containing antibiotic,encapsulated teo+oeo mixture with and without probiotic had significantlyhigher body weight gain (bwg) compared with control and non-capsulatedteo+oeo mixture groups on day 42 (p < 0.05). dietary inclusion ofteo+oeo in capsulated form and also in along to probiotic increased humoralimmunity in broiler chickens compared with other groups (p < 0.05). birds fedthe diet supplemented with different types of additives showed significantlyhigher dinitrochlorobenzene (dncb) compared with the control group at 32days of age (p < 0.05). dietary inclusion of the encapsulated eos with andwithout probiotic both significantly increased villus length and villus width incomparison to other groups (p < 0.05). the highest and lowest ratios wereobserved for the control group and probiotic+encapsulated teo+oeo grouprespectively. these results indicate that feeding birds with diet containingencapsulated eos alone or together with probiotic could improve bwg,immune responses and intestinal morphology in broiler chickens.