Growth performance, blood profile, nutrient digestibility and meat quality of broilers fed on diets supplemented with Scutellaria baicalensis extract

A study was undertaken to examine the effect of Scutellaria baicalensis extract (SBE) on growth performance, nutrient digestibility, blood profile, relative organ weight and breast meat quality in broilers. In total, 816 Ross 308 (1 d of age) were randomly divided into three dietary treatment groups with 16 replicate pens (17 birds/replicate) per treatment group for 5 weeks. The dietary treatments were a control basal diet without SBE or with 0.025 or 0.05% of SBE. Weight gain and feed conversion during d 8-21, 22-35 and overall improved linearly (P<0.05) by the supplementation of SBE. The results of the digestibility of dry matter, nitrogen and energy showed a linear increase (P<0.05). Blood parameters, such as aspartate transaminase, alanine transaminase,gamma-glutamyl transpeptidase, alkaline phosphatase, glucose, triiodothyronine, thyroxine, cortisol, epinephrine and norepinephrine concentrations, were not influenced by SBE added to the diet. There were no significant effects on relative organ weight and breast meat quality of broilers fed with SBE diets; however, 5 and 7 d drip loss was linearly increased in treatment groups fed with SBE (P<0.05). These results indicate that adding SBE to the diet of broilers can improve their growth performance, nutrient digestibility and drip loss of breast meat.