A Study on Changes in Gut Microflora, Blood Glucose Level and Lipid Profile of Broiler Chickens Fed with Murraya koenigii Supplemented Diet

Aims: The emergence of multiple drug resistance to human pathogenic organisms has necessitated the search for new antimicrobial substances from natural sources including plants. Also, the non communicable diseases such as diabetes mellitus and cardiovascular diseases represent an enormous, medical, social and economic burden to the public and high cost of synthetic drugs used for these diseases have become more exorbitant. As a remedial measure, attempts have been made to find alternatives with special attention to utilization of similar compounds of natural origin. This study was conducted to assess the effect of feeding curry leave on blood glucose level and lipid profile in broiler chicken and the antibacterial effect of curry leaves on gut microflora of broiler chicken.

Study Design: Sixty, 28 days old broiler birds were randomly allocated to four dietary treatments with three replicates of five birds per each replicate in a completely randomised design. Maize and soybean meal based control feed and three test diets prepared from the control feed by incorporating curry leaves at 0.5, 1.0 and 1.5% levels served as four dietary treatments. Feeding continued until slaughtering at 42 days of age.

Place and Duration of Study: The study was conducted in the Livestock unit of the University Farm and the sample analysis was done at the Laboratory of Livestock Production, Faculty of Agricultural Sciences, Sabaragamuwa University of Sri Lanka.

Methodology: Blood samples were collected at slaughter on 42nd day and lipid profile analysis (total cholesterol, high-density lipoproteins (HDL), low-density lipoproteins (LDL) and Triglycerides) and blood glucose analysis was done. At sacrifice 25 g of gut content was collected aseptically from each bird for microbiological investigation and total bacterial enumeration was done. Data were analyzed using SPSS and ANOVA followed by a Tukey’s post-hoc test.

Results: Serum total cholesterol level was significantly (P<0.05) lowered by 6.0%,12.4% and 15% in birds fed with 0.5%, 1% and 1.5% curry leave diets respectively compared to the control. There was no significant difference in triglycerides and HDL levels among treatments. LDL level was significantly (P< 0.05) lowered by 26.0, 30.7 and 34.6% respectively in birds fed with 0.5, 1.0 and 1.5% curry leave levels. Curry leave significantly reduced the serum glucose level by 10, 13 and 16% in birds with 0.5, 1.0 and 1.5% curry leave levels respectively. Microbiological study revealed a statistically significant reduction of gut microbes in broiler chicken. When compared to the microbial count in control (8.9x108 CFU/g), the count was reduced by 37.2% (5.6 x 108 CFU/g) in 1% group and by 49.1% (4.5 x 108 CFU/g) in 1.5% group. The reduction (8.5 x 108 CFU/g) was not significant with 0.5% curry leave level.

Conclusion: Curry leaves exerted hypoglycaemic and hypocholesterolemic effects in broiler chickens. There was ample evidence of antimicrobial effect as the inclusion levels of curry leaves increased across the diets.