Plantago ovata in broiler chicken nutrition: Performance, carcass criteria, intestinal morphology, immunity, and intestinal bacterial population

Summary In this experiment, the effect of dietary Plantago ovata (PO) on performance, carcass criteria, intestinal morphology, immunity, and intestinal bacterial population of broiler chickens was evaluated. A total of 250 one‐day‐old male broiler chicks (Ross 308) were randomly assigned to five treatments containing 0, 5, 10, 15, or 20 g/kg of PO with five replicate pens and 10 birds in each replicate. Dietary PO increased body weight gain and decreased feed conversion ratio in the finisher period, improving the performance index ( p  <   .05). Dietary treatments had no effects on carcass criteria, but breast meat percentage showed an increasing trend with incremental levels of PO in the diet ( p  =   .069). The length of small intestine, especially jejunum section, as well as the villus height, villus width, villus area, and goblet cell numbers were significantly increased with supplemental PO ( p  <   .05). Humoral and cellular immunity parameters, and oxidation stability of meat were improved due to use of dietary PO ( p  <   .05). Dietary PO decreased the CFU of Escherichia coli , whereas the Lactobacilli population was increased ( p  =   .001). Broken‐line regression revealed that dietary PO at the rate of 10 g/kg may results in the best performance in broiler chickens. This study showed that PO at the level of 10 g/kg could be considered as a beneficial feed additive in broiler diet.