SHORT COMMUNICATIONS Effect of supplementing pomegranate peel infusion on body growth, feed efficiency, biochemical metabolites and antioxidant status of broiler chicken Sarbaswarup Ghosh 1 & Paresh Nath Chatterjee 2 & Apratim Maity 3 & Joydip Mukherjee 4 & Subhasis Batabyal 3 & Jayanta Kumar Chatterjee 1 Received: 28 January 2020 /Accepted: 13 July 2020 # Springer Nature B.V. 2020 Abstract Pomegranate fruit peel is a great source of natural polyphenols. The objective of the present study was to evaluate efficacy of pomegranate peel infusion (PPI) on growth characteristics, feed efficiency, blood metabolites and antioxidant profile of broiler chicken. A total of 200 broiler chickens were randomly assigned to 4 treatments with 5 replicates of 10 birds. Pomegranate peel infusion was supplemented in drinking water to 3 treatment groups in a graded dose. At the end of the trial (42 days), 2 broiler chickens from each pen were sampled for serum and liver tissue. Results revealed that low-dose (50 mL/L) PPI influenced (L: P < 0.001) final body weight, daily body weight gain, and feed conversion ratio. Quadratic effect (Q: P < 0.001) was found in overall body weight, average daily gain in body weight, and average daily feed intake. It was also observed that PPI had significant (L: P < 0.05) hypo-lipidaemic effect. PPI supplementation reduced (L: P < 0.01) lipid peroxidation in all supplemented birds. Reduced glutathione and catalase in the liver tissue was also increased linearly (L: P < 0.05) by PPI supplementation, suggesting that natural polyphenols present in the PPI can stimulate antioxidant defence system. Thus, it could be concluded that low-dose supplementation of pomegranate peel infusion could be of great benefits in broiler chickens as a source of natural antioxidants. Keywords Antioxidant . Blood metabolite . Broiler chicken . Pomegranate peel infusion Introduction Due to booming of food processing industry, fruit jelly and bev- erage producing workshops gives forth large quanta of process- ing wastes like peels and marc which easily remains available for recycling (Selvamuthukumaran and Shi 2017). Pomegranate fruit peel (PP) contains plethora of phenolic acids and flavonoids with remarkable antioxidant and other bioactive properties (Wu and Tian 2017). Previous research (Saleh et al. 2017) demon- strated that pomegranate peel extract positively improved overall performance of broiler chicken when supplemented with feed. However, little information is available on effect of supplementing pomegranate peel extract through drinking water on broilers. Liquid extract of PP using water solvent is more safe and environment friendly than any other form of extract as water is non-toxic to living beings. Water extract also has an advantage over lyophilized form because lyophilisation requires sophisticat- ed instruments and chemicals that might lead to increase in pro- duction cost of the extract. Recently, nature-friendly green ex- traction methods from PP has considerably attracted researchers worldwide (Qu et al. 2010; Boggia et al. 2016). Hot water infu- sion is a traditional green extraction method described in tradi- tional Indian Ayurveda (Frawley and Ranade 2000). In our pre- vious experiment, hot water infusion from PP showed excellent in vitro antioxidant activity (Ghosh et al. 2019a). Preparation of the pomegranate peel infusion using hot water is simple and cost- Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s11250-020-02352-0) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Sarbaswarup Ghosh drsarba@rediffmail.com 1 Department of Animal Science, Visva Bharati University, Sriniketan, Santiniketan 731235, India 2 Department of Fish Nutrition, West Bengal University of Animal & Fishery Science, Belgachia, Kolkata 700037, India 3 Department of Veterinary Biochemistry, West Bengal University of Animal & Fishery Science, Belgachia, Kolkata 700037, India 4 Department of Animal Physiology, West Bengal University of Animal & Fishery Science, Belgachia, Kolkata 700037, India Tropical Animal Health and Production https://doi.org/10.1007/s11250-020-02352-0