Synergy of lemon grass and neem leaves as growth promoter on performance, digestibility and carcass yield of broiler finisher

Herbal plants have been considered as effective growth-promoter feed additives, majorly because of their bioactive compounds. It is on this note that this study was conducted to assess the synergetic effects of lemon grass (LG) and neem leaves (NL) as growth promoter feed additives in broilers' diets. The LG and NL were harvested, chopped (2mm) and air-dried (DM≥75%). The air-dried samples were analyzed for phytochemicals, proximate composition and selected minerals before incorporated into broilers finisher diet at 5% each (T2 and T3), 2.5% each in combined treatment (T4). Four diet treatment were formulated to supply average of 20.73% CP and 3336kcal/kg ME. Each treatment comprises of 3 replicates with 10 birds/replicate. The results shows that the plants were rich in flavonoids, phenols, tannins, resins and terpenoids while they both had appreciable amounts of sterols and alkaloids. Lemon Grass was richer in crude protein, crude fibre and ash than NL while the later was richer in calcium, potassium and sodium. Inclusion of these plants as feed additives had significant (P<0.05) effect on performance, carcass yield and nutrient digestibility with birds on T4 recorded the highest weights in all the measure parameters. Notable effect on Feed efficiency ratio (1.32), which indicated that the birds on T4 utilized the feed better than other treatments. It was concluded that synergetic effect of LG and NL enhanced growth performance, nutrients digestibility and carcass yield of broiler chicken fed these plants as growth promoter feed additives