The effects of growth and immune stimulants based on medicinal plants with and without probiotics on performance, carcass characteristics and immune responses of broiler chickens

In order to investigate the effects of growth and immunity-stimulating additives based on medicinal plants with and without probiotics on the performance and physiological and metabolic parameters of broiler chickens, an experiment was conducted in a completely randomized design (factorial arrangment) with three types of additives (commercial Bioherbal additive, ASRI-I1 and ASRI-I2) and two levels of Gallipro probiotics (0, 200 g/ton), in 6 treatments and 4 repetitions and 15 pieces of mixed male and female chickens in each repetition.The effects of immune stimulants and probiotics on body weight, feed consumption, food conversion ratio, viability percentage and production index were not significant. Carcass percentage, thigh percentage, breast percentage, back and neck percentage, abdominal cavity fat percentage and relative weight of internal organs were not affected by immune stimulant and probiotic. The effect of herbal and probiotic immune stimulants on the response to sheep red blood cells, immunoglobulin G and immunoglobulin M was not significant.The effect of immune stimulants on the percentage of heterophils, lymphocytes and their ratio was significant (P<0.05). In the whole period, no significant difference was observed in most of the examined traits in broiler chickens fed with diets containing three different types of immune stimulants, but numerically, there were slight differences between them, and the addition of IASRI 1 had better effects. Among other additives, its use along with probiotics showed beneficial effects in improving the performance and immune responses of broiler chickens, therefore, IASRI 1 additive is recommended for additional studies and semi-industrial production.