Effect of Zizyphus jujube and Elaeagnus angustifolia powder on growth performance, blood metabolites and meat quality of broiler chickens under high temperature conditions

This experiment was performed to investigate the effects of Ziziphus jujube and Elaeagnus angustifolia powder on growth performance, bloodmetabolites and meat quality of broiler chickens at high temperature conditions. In this experiment, 160 one-day-old male broiler chickens of Ross308 were used in a completely randomized design with 4 treatments and 4 replicates of 10 birds per each. Experimental treatments were including: 1-control (basal diet), 2- basal diet + 0.75% Ziziphus jujube, 3- basal diet + 0.75% Elaeagnus angustifolia powder, and 4- basal diet + combination ofZiziphus jujube and Elaeagnus angustifolia powder (0.75% of each). At day 25 of age, with the onset of heat stress, the chicks were exposed to 34±2 °C for eight hours daily from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. The results showed that the effect of treatments on growth performance traits was not significant(P≥0.05). Also, the relative weight of carcasses and internal organs except liver were not affected by experimental treatments. The lowest relative liverweight was observed in the control group (P≤0.05). The addition of Ziziphus jujube and Elaeagnus angustifolia in the diet significantly increasedglutathione peroxidase and decreased blood glucose compared to the control group (P≤0.05). The highest amount of water holding capacity andlowest dripping loss and cooking loss were observed in birds fed Ziziphus jujube mill and Elaeagnus angustifolia (P≤0.05). Based on the results of thecurrent experiment, although the inclusion of 0.75% of Ziziphus jujube and Elaeagnus angustifolia had no effect on growth performance of broilerchicken, but improved blood metabolites and meat quality traits.