Effects of thymol and carvacrol supplementation on intestinal integrity and immune responses of broiler chickens challenged with Clostridium perfringens

Table 5 Effect of essential oils on the growth performance and relative spleen weight of broilers^a

Items	BWG (d 14–28), g	FI (d 14–28), g	FCR (d 14–28)	Spleen (d 21), %
Treatment
U1	810	1435	1.77	0.10
U2	833	1407	1.70	0.11
U3	859	1454	1.70	0.12
U4	868	1436	1.66	0.11
C1	883	1510	1.71	0.11
C2	878	1480	1.69	0.14
C3	827	1395	1.69	0.13
C4	836	1418	1.70	0.14
SEM	11.2	14.3	0.01	0.004
P-value
Challenge	0.559	0.553	0.569	0.004
EO	0.984	0.617	0.148	0.289
Challenge × EO	0.261	0.262	0.392	0.426
Linear^b	0.938	0.288	0.056	0.155
Quadratic^b	0.925	0.434	0.305	0.338

^aValues are means of eight replicates per treatment. BWG body weight gain, FI feed intake, FCR feed conversion ratio, SEM pooled standard error, EO essential oils
^bWhen the interaction between C. perfringens challenge and EO supplementation was not significant, linear and quadratic polynomial contrasts were performed on the main-effect means to EO dosages

ISSN: 2049-1891