ACTA SCIENTIFIC NUTRITIONAL HEALTH (ISSN:2582-1423) Volume 4 Issue 3 March 2020 Dietary Supplementation of Oregano (Plectranthus amboinicus L.) Leaf Meal on the Growth Performance of Bounty Fresh Broiler Mark Joker l Marcos 1 *, Oliva M Gaffud 1 and Lilibeth S Languido 2 1 Faculty, Department of Animal Science and Animal Husbandry, College of Agriculture, Isabela State University, Echague, Philippines 2 Faculty, Isabela State University, San Mariano Campus, Philippines *Corresponding Author: Mark Joker l Marcos, Faculty, Department of Animal Science and Animal Husbandry, College of Agriculture, Isabela State University, Echague, Philippines. Research Article Abstract Keywords: Growth Performance; Oregano Leaf Meal; Bounty Fresh Broiler Received: January 24, 2020 © All rights are reserved by Mark Joker l Marcos. Published: February 06, 2020 A total of (120) day old Bounty Fresh colored broiler chickens were carried out in a completely randomized design to evaluate the effect of different levels of oregano leaf meal (OLM) on the growth performance at a dietary levels of 0, 3, 6 and 9% respectively. Results showed significant in terms of cumulative feed consumption, gain weight and feed conversion ratio. Broilers given 6% of level of oregano (T 3 ) had the heaviest body weight on the seven week of age with a mean 1955.25 grams while the lightest was those broil- ers without the supplementation of oregano leaf meal (T 1 ) with a mean of 1743.75 grams. The inclusion of OLM as fed diet were the most efficient feed converter and therefore, has the potential to increase rapid growth and improve vitality and livability of colored broiler chicken. Insignificant result was obtained in terms of the percentage rate of growth, dressing percentage with and without giblets and feed conversion ratio as revealed by the analysis of variance. However, in terms of the income over feed and chick costs, Colored broiler chicken fed with 6% oregano leaf meal had the highest return of Php 88.89 and the lowest return was those broilers without oregano with a return of Php 50.47.The results suggest that OLM at 6% level can be safely used as feed ingredients to the broilers without any deleterious effect. Introduction The cost of poultry production in the country and in other de- veloping countries is the main problem of poultry raisers. Feed represents 60% to 75% of the total cost of production. The scarcity and prohibitive cost of commercial energy and protein source like maize and sorghum for poultry ration is one of the reasons of the high cost of poultry feeds. To arrest this situation, poultry raisers all over the world, particularly those of the developing countries are forced to think alternative to reduce their expenses in the pro- duction. Broilers are chickens produced specifically for meat production and have grown dramatically over the years. These improvements are largely due to numerous researches and breeding programs which further enhanced feed utilization, growth rate and low levels of activity. Current commercial hybrids with high performance re- quire high energy diets which would enable the maximum expres- sion of their genetic potential [19] in order to achieve this poultry farmers make use of synthetic growth promoters to enhance feed utilization and growth performance of broilers. Plant products have been used for centuries by humans as food and to treat ailments. Natural medicinal products originating from herbs and spices have also been used as feed additives for farm ani- mals to improve performance of agricultural livestock [7]. Growth promoters are the substances that are added to a nu- tritionally balanced diet which provoke response towards the ex- ploitation of maximum genetic potential of the broiler, in terms of growth as well as improvement in feed conversion efficiency. The use of growth promoters has been accepted in the broiler industry and they are usually included in the feed in very small quantities. Many antibiotics are used in animal and poultry feeds as growth promoters to improve the health and well-being of animals and as a prophylactic agent for promoting growth. Oregano (Plectranthus amboinicus) is a species of Origanum, an aromatic herbal product, because of its highly potent chemical na- ture and it has been used as a functional herbal product, mainly for preserving food quality, for inhibiting microbial proliferation on ready-to-cook poultry meat, and, more recently, as an alternative growth promoter in swine and poultry nutrition. Carvacrol, thymol, γ-terpinene, and ρ-cymene are the most important components of oregano essential oil involved in the functional properties of oreg- ano [3,9,17]. Proximate analysis showed that oregano contained also 8.9% moisture, 13.3% protein, 4.1% fat, 19.0% crude fibre, and 9.1% ash. This plant is used by farmers for its medicinal use. DOI: 10.31080/ASNH.2020.04.0635 Citation: Mark Joker l Marcos., et al. “Dietary Supplementation of Oregano (Plectranthus amboinicus L.) Leaf Meal on the Growth Performance of Bounty Fresh Broiler". Acta Scientific Nutritional Health 4.3 (2020): 01-06.