Abstract

The hop plant contains flavonoids, bitter acids and essential oils that confer antibacterial properties. An experiment was conducted to evaluate the possibility of supplementing broiler chicken diets with hop pellets. Accordingly, growth performance response of broiler chickens given hopssupplemented diets was evaluated in a 49-day floor-pen trial. Day-old (320) male broiler chicks were commercially obtained and randomly assigned to 4 treatments. Treatment 1 (CX) consisted of chicks fed unmedicated corn-soybean meal (SBM) diet without hops pellets added. Treatment 2 (MX) consisted of chicks fed corn-SBM basal into which bacitracin methylene disalicylate (BMD) was added at 0.055g/kg. Treatment 3 (HL) consisted of chicks fed corn-SBM basal into which hops pellets were added at 1.0 % level. Treatment 4 (HH) consisted of chicks fed corn-SBM basal into which hops pellets were added at 2.0 % level. On d 21, 42, and 49, body weight, body weight gain, and feed conversion ratio (FCR) were evaluated. Transient benefits of hops supplementation in form of higher body weight gain (P<0.05) compared to other treatments were observed but were not sustained. The FCR of birds in the hops-supplemented treatments (HL and HH) were similar (P>0.05) to those of birds in the BMD antibiotic-supplemented treatment (MX) throughout the study. It was concluded that supplementation of hops pellets into broiler diets at 1% or 2% level of the diet had no detrimental effect on broiler growth performance. Therefore, future studies should be conducted to evaluate the efficacy of dietary hops in mitigating the colonization of poultry intestine by economically important zoonotic and/or disease pathogens.

Keywords: Hops pellet; Bacitracin methylene disalicylate; Broiler chickens; Growth performance

Abbreviations:SBM: Soybean Meal; BMD: Bacitracin Methylene Disalicylate; BWG: Body Weight Gain; FCR: Feed Conversion Ratio; GLM: General Linear Models