Effects of Aromatherapy with Ginger Essential Oil on Tonic Immobility Reactions and some Blood Metabolites of Caponized and Intact Cockerels

Aromatherapy with essential oils (EO) in rats has been reported to alter some of the serum variables and reduce anxiety. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of aromatherapy with ginger EO on serum metabolites and fear related responses in capons and intact cockerels.

In this study, 10 caponized and 10 sham-operatedcockerelswere used. Half of the poultries in each group (capons=5 andsham-operated cockerels=5) were treated by aromatic EO in a chamber, and the rest of experimental poultries were exposed to water vapor in the same chamber. Eachbird after removal from the chamber was held by both legs and swung into an inverted position for 30 s and thereaftertonic immobility (TI)test was performed on it.Two weeks after this test, the aromatherapy process was repeated in all birds and blood plasma metabolites were measured before and after aromatherapy.

Aromatherapy in the caponized group resulted in a decrease in the tonic immobility duration, indicating a decrease in fearfulness induced by harvesting process.Moreover, aromatherapy significantly increased plasmalevels of glucose, protein and total urea in cockerels.

Aromatherapy is probably by activating the sympathetic system and increase blood pressure, lead to increased levels of glucose, protein and serum urea and reduce the number of inductions required to attain the TI response. Therefore, ginger EOexposure during manual harvesting maybe advisable to reduce fearful responses in cockerels.