Effect of a herbal supplement livol on the growth performance and antibody response against infectious bursal disease virus in broiler chicks

Current study was conducted to evaluate the effect of two commercially available immunostimulants livol (herbal supplement) and immunotone (selenium and vit. e) on growth performance and humoral response against ibd virus vaccine. in the present study 150 broiler chicks were purchased and divided into five groups namely a,b,c,d and e (30 chicks in each group). the birds of groups a,b and e were vaccinated with infectious bursal diseases (ibd) virus vaccine (busaplex) on 1st day of age. birds of groups a and c were supplemented with immunotone while group b and d were supplemented with livol. the effect of immunostimulants on humoral immune response was evaluated by recording weekly serum antibody titers against ibd through indirect haemagglutination (iha) test. no significant difference was found in the body weight of broiler chicks on 7,14,21 and 28 days of age among the different treatment groups but the body weight of groups b and d receiving livol was significantly increased (p<0.05) after 35 days. no significant difference was found in the feed conversion ratio (fcr) during treatment period but on day 35 livol treated groups b and d showed significantly higher fcr 1.52±0.02 and 1.48±0.02,respectively. the cumulative mean titers for iha for different treatment groups a,b,c,d and e were 43.3,51.4,12.3,14.1 and 40.1,respectively (p<0.05). these results indicate that livol supplementation may help to increase post vaccination humoral immune response against ibd in broiler chicks. copyright 2013 zoological society of pakistan.