AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH COMMUNICATION CENTRE www.arccjournals.com/www.ijaronline.in *Corresponding author’s e-mail: drsneha.44@gmail.com. 1 Division of Poultry Science, Central Avian Research Institute, Izatnagar (Bareilly), India. 2,3 Deptt. of LPM , CVAS, Pantnagar. Indian J. Anim. Res., 50 (4) 2016 : 493-496 Print ISSN:0367-6722 / Online ISSN:0976-0555 Serum-biochemical profile and immunomodulatory effect of Aegle marmelos, Chelidonium majus and Boerhaavia diffusa homeopathic mother tincture supplementation in guinea fowl S.L. Gupta* 1 , J. Palod 2 and S.K. Singh 3 College of Veterinary and Animal Sciences, Govind Ballabh Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar- 263 145, India. Received: 12-01-2015 Accepted: 07-04-2015 DOI:10.18805/ijar.9489 ABSTRACT An experiment was undertaken on a total one hundred eighty, guinea fowls (Numida meleagris) of day old age, which were randomly divided into four groups [Control, Bael (Aegle marmelos), Chelidonium (Chelidonium majus) and Punarnava (Boerhaavia diffusa) mother tincture], each group having three replications consisting of fifteen guinea fowls each, for a period of 12 weeks to test their effect on serum biochemical profile and immune response. Results revealed that inclusion of Bael, Chelidonium and Punarnava decreased serum cholesterol and serum glucose levels with minimum in Bael, however all treatments acted as immunomodulator with best immune enhancement recorded in Chelidonium supplemented group. Key words: Aegle marmelos, Boerhaavia diffusa, Chelidonium majus, Immunomodulator, Guinea fowls, Serum-Biochemical. INTRODUCTION India is a rich source of traditional medicines and medicinal plants are the useful alternative of antibiotics in poultry production due to their wide range of safety margin. Now a day’s the demand of natural products has increased due to freedom from side effects, reduced risk of toxicity and being environment friendly. In order to improve health and fulfil consumer expectations in relation to food quality, poultry producers commonly use natural feed supplements, mainly herbs and plant extract (Gardzielewska et al., 2003). In addition plant extract and herbs have been reported to activate the immune system having immunomodulatory and health beneficial properties (Bhatt et al., 2013 and Tiwari et al., 2014). As an alternate to herbal extracts, homeopathic mother-tinctures are better option due to their fast action, easy acceptance by the body, especially the gastrointestinal system for long term effectiveness. Use of homeopathic mother tinctures in poultry is relatively a new concept. Looking to the role of these mother tinctures an experiment was conducted to study serum-biochemical profile and immunomodulatory effect of Aegle marmelos, Chelidonium majus and Boerhaavia diffusa homeopathic mother tincture in guinea fowls. MATERIALS AND METHODS An experiment on one hundred eighty guinea fowl (Numida meleagris) keets from their initial nursing day old age was carried out at Instructional Poultry Farm (IPF), College of Veterinary and Animal Sciences, Govind Ballabh Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar. These were randomly divided into four groups (T1-Control, T2-Bael, T3-Chelidonium and T4-Punarnava mother tincture supplemented group), having three replications consisting of fifteen guinea fowls each. All the birds were reared on deep litter system and provided standard diet. The respective homeopathic mother tinctures as per the groups were added @ 0.05ml, 0.08ml and 0.1ml per bird in the drinking water at morning time at the age of 1-4 weeks, 5-8 weeks and 9-12 weeks respectively; excluding the control group birds which were given plain drinking water. Delayed type of hypersensitivity test was conducted on the 40th day of experiment by randomly selecting six guinea fowls from each group for the sensitization test. The sensitized guinea fowls were challenged two weeks later and assessment of reaction was done 24 hrs post challenge. At the end of feeding trial on 84th day, two guinea fowls from each replicate (6 birds/ treatment) were randomly selected for blood collection from each group to study the effect of homeopathic mother tinctures on serum-biochemical parameters and humoral immune response and were subjected to statistical analysis as per Snedecor and Cochran (1994). RESULTS AND DISCUSSION Glucose: Table 1 shows that the glucose in the present investigation revealed a significant (P<0.05) impact of homeopathic mother tinctures in guinea fowls with maximum value in treatment group T1 (208.16 mg/dl) while minimum in group T2 (187.65 mg/dl). The value of serum glucose was significantly (P<0.05) decreased in T2 group which may probably be due to hypoglycaemic activity of Bael. Bael is