ABSTRACT The aim of present study was to evaluate the effect of feeding vegetable waste (VW) to broilers on their growth performance, serum chemistry, immune status, meat mineral content and lipid oxidation status. For this purpose, 100 one-day-old chicks (Cobb 500) were acquired from a commercial hatchery and allocated according to a completely randomized design into five dietary treatments with four replicates of five birds each. The dietary treatments included: T1 ( 100 % c o m m e r c i a l f e e d ( C F ) + 0 % V W), T2 ( 75 % C F + 25 % V W), T3 ( 50 % C F + 50 % V W), T4 ( 25 % C F + 75 % V W) and T5 ( 0 % C F + 100 % V W). Experimental birds were subjected to dietary treatments from 5 to 7 weeks of age. At the end of week 7 (49 days), eight birds with uniform average body weight were selected per treatment (2birds/replicate), kept off-feed for 4 h and then manually slaughtered according to the Halal method to collect data for serum chemistry, meat minerals and lipid oxidation status. The results indicated better meat lipid oxidation status (p≤0.05) and lower meat mineral content (p≤0.05) when birds fed VW at 25, 50, 75, and 100% of the diets compared with 100% commercial feed. On the other hand, blood chemistry and antibody response parameters did not respond (p>0.05) to dietary intervention. In conclusion, dietary inclusion of vegetable waste had positive influence on meat quality in terms of meat lipid oxidation and meat mineral content, and may be replace up to 75% of commercial broiler feeds with beneficial effects.

ABSTRACT The present study was conducted to investigate the influence of different levels of dietary phytogenic feed additive (PFA) on growth performance, caecal microbiota, and intestinal morphology of broilers. A total of 480 Ross-308 one-day-old male broilers chicks (body weight 43±3 g) were randomly assigned to 32 replicate pens of four experimental groups, each experimental group consisting of 8 replicates (each replicate pen consisting of 15 chicks). A basal diet was formulated based on corn and soybean meal that was fed to the control group. Other dietary treatments received a commercial PFA at 100 mg/kg (PFA100), 125 mg/kg (PFA125), and 150 mg/kg (PFA150). Body weight gain, feed intake, and feed conversion rate of broilers were recorded on 1-21, 22-42, and 1-42 days of age. One bird was slaughtered on the 21st and 42nd days and caecal contents were aseptically collected. Jejunal tissue samples were also collected on the same days. Total aerobic bacteria, coliforms, Escherichia coli, and lactobacilli were counted in the caecal contents. Villus height, villus diameter, crypt depth, muscular thickness, and goblet cell number per villus were recorded. There was no difference among the dietary treatments for growth performance and caecal microbe populations at any phase. However, the dietary PFA supplementation increased the villus height, villus width, muscularis thickness, and reduced the crypt depth and goblet cell number per villus in broilers compared to those fed control diets. In conclusion, this study suggests that dietary supplementation of a PFA consisting of blend of different spices and essential oils did not improve growth performance and caecal microbial populations despite a positive improvement in the jejunal morphometry of broilers.

The physiological and nutrient uptake performance of two wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) cultivars (Lasani-2008 and Auqab-2000) to foliar application of 1% potassium (K) at three different growth stages (tillering, flower initiation and grain filling) was investigated under water limited environment in a wire house experiment at the Nuclear Institute for Agriculture and Biology, Faisalabad. The aim was to find out the best K application stage for improvement in drought tolerance potential. Drought stress was created by withholding irrigation at the three growth stages and then K was sprayed with carboxymethyl cellulose as a sticking agent, whereas Tween-20 was used as a surfactant for foliar spray. At maturity, aboveground nitrogen, phosphorus, K, sodium and calcium uptakes by the crop were measured. Besides, water potential, osmotic potential and turgor potential of crop were also estimated. The results indicated that the drought stress at all three critical growth stages of wheat adversely affected plant's nutrient uptake, water potential, osmotic potential and turgor potential of wheat plants. The exogenous application of K under drought stress at all three critical growth stages enhanced tolerance of wheat by reducing toxic nutrient's uptake and improving the physiological efficiency. In this regards, both varieties showed uniform behavior. Maximum improvement in all the recorded nutrients uptake and physiological parameters was achieved when K was applied at grain filling stage of both cultivars.