Use of ginger and cinnamon oils mixture as a natural alternative to antibiotics in quail feed

This study was explored to study the role of ginger oil (GO) and cinnamon oil (CO) oil mixture as natural alternatives to antibiotics in improving quail growth, meat yield, and blood chemistry. One hundred eighty one-week-old quails were haphazardly divided into 4 groups. The experimental groups were: control: basal diet; antibiotic (Ant); GCO0.5: basal diet + 0.25 ml GO + 0.25 ml CO/kg diet; and GCO1.0: basal diet + 0.50 ml GO + 0.50 ml CO/kg diet. Chicks that received 0.25 ml GO plus 0.25 ml CO/kg diet had higher live body weight (LBW) and body weight gain (BWG) compared with those received either 0.5 g antibiotic/kg diet or control diet, but not significantly differed from GCO1.0. FCR was improved in the chicks fed 0.25 ml GO + 0.25 ml CO/kg diet. Carcass, dressing and gizzard were improved by dietary oil supplementation. All the herbal oil groups had lower (P < 0.01) than the control. Values of super oxide dismutase (SOD), glutathione-disulfide reductase (GSR), total antioxidant capacity (TAC), and glutathione peroxidase (GPX) were higher in all herbal oil groups than in the control and antibiotic groups. The lower (P < 0.01) values of malondialdehyde (MDA) were given by the herbal oil groups. From the results above, a conclusion could be drawn that combining 0.5 ml cinnamon oil + 0.5 ml ginger oil could act as a good alternative to antibiotics (colistin) in growing Japanese quail diets for health and growth aspects.