Effect of Mint Leaves with or without Enzyme Supplementation on Blood Biochemistry , Carcass Characteristics and Sensory Attributes of Broiler Chicken

| A study was conducted to evaluate the effect of dietary supplementation of Mint leaves (Mentha piperita) with or without enzyme treatment on blood chemistry, carcass characteristics and sensory attributes of broiler chicken production. 225 day old commercial broiler chicks reared together until 7 days of age. On 8th day, the chicks were individually weighed, distributed randomly into 5 treatment groups of 3 replicates with 15 chicks each for a period of 42 days of age. Birds in the control group (T1) were fed diets without additives, whereas in T2 and T3 basal diet was supplemented with raw mint leaves @ 1% (T2) and 2% (T3). In T4 and T5, enzyme treated mint leaves @ 1% and 2% were added to the basal diet respectively. At the end of experimental period, blood biochemistry, carcass characteristics and sensory attributes were recorded. The results revealed that there was no significant (P>0.05) effect on serum glucose, total protein, cholesterol, SGPT and SGOT levels of birds fed diets either supplemented with raw or enzyme treated mint leaves both at 1 and 2% levels when compared with the group of birds fed control diet. Further, various carcass characteristics viz. feather loss, evisceration loss, giblets, shank, head and dressing % in the groups fed raw or enzyme treated 1 and 2% mint leaves showed a non significant (P>0.05) difference compared to control group. Moreover, no effect (P>0.05) on various sensory attributes and the overall acceptability of meat among the various treatment groups and control group was observed. In conclusion, the dietary inclusion of raw or enzyme treated mint leaves had no negative effect on the health of birds as could be figured out from the normal SGPT and SGOT levels of birds.


Advances in
ported to be less toxic, residue free and thus considered as ideal feed additives in animal production (Hashemi and Davoodi, 2010).These herbal plants exert positive effects on growth and health of animals probably by their immuno stimulatory properties (Guo et al., 2004).
Kashmir often referred to as paradise on earth is located at the north western tip of Himalayan biodiversity hotspot (Hussian, 2001).The region has a number of phytobiotics which may have the potential to promote production performance in chicken; and one amongst them being Mint (Mentha piperita), locally known as Pudina.Mint is a member of the Labiatae family and is widely used in herbal medicine and believed to be beneficial in as immunity enhancer (Nanekarani et al., 2012).Mint is mostly consumed after a meal because of its ability to reduce indigestion and intestinal spasms by reducing the gastrocholic reflux (Spirling and Daniels, 2001).The main action of its leaves and flowers is due to the presence of abundant menthol which is the main phenolic component having antibacterial activities (Schuhmacher et al., 2003).Mint also contains polyphenolic compounds and hence could possess strong antioxidant properties (Dorman et al., 2003).Further, the supplementation of enzyme in poultry diets has been reported to improve the performance (Yousuf et al., 2012) by degrading non-starchy polysaccharides and improving their digestion; having beneficial effect on gut morphology and thus improving absorption of nutrients (Tufarelli et al., 2007;Yousuf et al., 2011;Qureshi et al., 2016a).In view of such beneficial effects of mint and enzyme, a study was conducted to evaluate the efficiency of mint leaves, with or without enzyme supplementation on blood biochemistry, carcass characteristics and sensory attributes of broiler chicken.

experiMenTAl siTe
The study was conducted in the Teaching and Research Farm of the Division of Livestock Production and Management, Faculty of Veterinary Sciences and Animal Husbandry, Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology of Kashmir, Shuhama.

ColleCTion And AnAlysis of TesT MATeriAl
The locally available Mint leaves (Mentha piperita) were procured from the market.The material was dried and stored properly for future use.Dried samples of herb were subjected to proximate analysis as per the standard procedures.

experiMenTAl dieTs And TreATMenT Groups
The feeding programme consisted of a starter diet fed until 21 days and a finisher diet afterwards up to 42 days of age.Birds in the control group were fed the diets without any additive.The diets were formulated to meet the recommendations of Bureau of Indian standards (BIS, 2000).The ingredient and nutrient composition of the control diet is given in Table 1.All the diets were prepared with the same batch of ingredients and all diets within a period had the same composition.The chicks were procured from a reputed source and reared together until 7 days of age.On 8th day, the chicks were individually weighed, distributed randomly into 5 treatment groups of 3 replicates with 15 chicks each.Birds in the control group (T1) were fed diets without additives, whereas in T2 and T3 basal diet was supplemented with raw mint leaves @ 1% (T2) and 2% (T3).In T4 and T5, enzyme treated mint leaves @ 1% and 2% were added to the basal diet respectively.Enzyme used was a cocktail product added to the feed @ 50g per 100 kg of feed.Composition of Enzyme used was as follows: Cellulase 180000000, Amylase 125000, Xylanase 1800000, Phytase 200000, Protease 16000, Lipase 40000 and Pectinase 7000 IU/g.Birds had ad libitum access to feed and water throughout and were maintained on a constant 24 hours light schedule.All chicks were vaccinated against Ranikhet disease on 5 th day with F 1 strain vaccine and B 2 K vaccine against Infectious bursal disease on 16 th day.All chicks were kept under the same managerial, hygienic and environmental conditions.

pArAMeTers reCorded
Blood biochemistry: Blood samples from birds in different dietary groups were collected for hematological study.For this purpose 2 birds/ replicate were randomly selected for the collection of blood.Whole blood was collected from the birds in sterile test tubes, without the addition of anticoagulant and kept in slanting position.The tubes containing blood were incubated at 37°C for 1 h.Blood clots were broken and tubes were centrifuged at 3000 rpm for 30 min.The serum was pipetted out in small tubes which were stored under deep freeze condition (-20°C) until analysis.Serum glucose, protein, cholesterol SGPT and SGOT were estimated with the aid of auto analyzer equipment (Make: DiaSys Diagnostics India Pvt.Ltd.) by using respective biochemical kits.
Carcass characteristics: At the end of feeding trial, two birds per replicate were selected at random and utilized for carcass evaluation study.The birds were kept off fed overnight and water was withdrawn 3-4 hours prior to slaughter.The birds were weighed before fasting.The birds were slaughtered by the Halal method and a bleeding time of 2 minutes was allowed.The shanks were cut off at the hock and carcass was subjected to scalding process at 60 o C for 30 seconds.The feathers were removed completely by hand picking leaving the skin intact.Thereafter, the abdominal cavity was opened to expose the visceral organs.Slaughter characteristics, yield of giblets and cutability characteristics were calculated by the method used by Salahuddin et al. (2000).
Sensory evaluation of meat: Sensory evaluation of meat was carried out in collaboration with Deportment of Livestock Products and Technology, Faculty of Veterinary Sciences & Animal Husbandry, Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology-Jammu, using 8-point hedonic scale for descriptive attributes of product, as described by Keeton (1983).
Preparation of meat samples: Eight breast meat samples of equal dimensions from each treatment group were taken out from the deep freezer (stored) and allowed to thaw at room temperature for two hours.The samples were washed in running tap water and fat was removed.Samples were weighed and kept in autoclave.A volume of 1.2% salt solution equal to sample weight was poured in to the autoclave.The autoclave was closed and the meat samples were cooked for 10 min.at 15 psi pressure.The samples were removed from the autoclave and kept in bone china plates to allow them to cool to room temperature.Sensory evaluation of the samples was done by an expert panel of 10 judges on 8 point scale and judges had not taken any meal or beverages at least within one hour prior to evaluation.The samples were evaluated for general appearance, flavor, tenderness, juiciness and overall acceptability.Judging was as follows:  Flavor 6.61±0.126.66±0.127±0.13 6.80±0.136.66±0.12Juiciness 6.66±0.126.47±0.136.61±0.126.57±0.136.52±0.13Texture 6.80±0.136.90±0.136.85±0.126.90±0.136.85±0.14

Blood BioCheMisTry
The

CArCAss ChArACTerisTiCs
The results of slaughter and carcass characteristics in birds fed diets supplemented with raw and enzyme treated mint leave are presented in Table 3.The dressing percentage in broiler chicken in various experimental groups ranged between 69.37±1.17 and 70.75±1.73.However, this difference in dressing percentage was non-significant (p>0.05).
There was no significant (P>0.05)difference in the yield characteristics of giblets, viz.Gizzard weight, heart weight and liver weight among different treatment groups and control group.Similarly the yield of feathers was not significant (p>0.05) between various treatment groups and no significant difference was recorded in shank and head percentage among different treatment groups and control group.

sensory ATTriBuTes
The results of sensory evaluation of the meat from different treatments are presented in Table 4.There was no significant (P<0.05)difference among the various sensory attributes i.e. appearance, flavour, juiciness, texture, mouth coating and the overall acceptability ranged from 6.66 to 7.

Blood BioCheMisTry
The  (Qota et al., 2002;Shakmak, 2003;Al-Harthi, 2006) who independently found that cell-wall degrading enzymes and/or phytase supplementation had no adverse effect on biochemical constituents of plasma and liver function of broiler chicks.The variation in the results of blood parameters may be influenced by many factors including age, sex, type of bird, environmental, nutritional and physiological situation as well as purity and variation of compounds in herb and herb products as indicated by some earlier workers (Annongu et al., 2012;Tolba et al., 2010).Nobakht et al. (2010;2011) reported that a blend of Mentha pulegium with another medicinal herb significantly improved the carcass traits such as breast muscle of broilers.

CArCAss And slAuGhTer ChArACTerisTiCs
No effect on various carcass attributes with other herbs except for the dressing percentage has also been reported by other workers (Qureshi et al., 2016b).

sensory evAluATion
Sensory evaluation/organoleptic evaluation of the cooked meat product from the five treatment groups in the present study revealed statistically non-significant (P>0.05)difference.Mint has traditionally been used as condiment and flavouring agents in cookery.Apparently there was the assumption that supplementing broilers diet with the foregoing herb might influence meat culinary properties but sensory evaluation of their meat revealed that inclusion of Mint leaves did not induce any abnormal odour or flavour in meat.This was in agreement with the observations of Toghyani et al. ( 2010) who reported that peppermint incorporation in broiler diet had no desirable effect on meat sensory.Similar trend was reported by Al-Sultan (2003) who reported that turmeric did not induce any abnormal flavour in the cooked broiler meat and a same finding was reported by Al-Ankari et al. (2004).Similarly, Williams and Damron (1998) reported that rendered spent hen meal had no adverse effect on the flavour of chicken meat.In contrast to the present study Dahal and Farran (2011) reported that significant mint flavour was detected in the samples chosen from the mint fed chicken.Similarly, Gbenga et al. (2009) reported a significant garlic aroma score in the meat of the chickens fed 5 g garlic/kg diet.
The study concluded that the dietary inclusion of raw or

Table 1 :
Percent ingredient and nutrient composition of experimental basal diets (Dry matter basis)

Table 2 :
Effect of feeding diets supplemented with raw and enzyme treated mint leaves (Mentha piperita) to broiler chicken on some serum constituents

Table 3 :
Carcass characteristics of broiler chicken fed diets supplemented with raw and enzyme treated mint leaves

Advances in Animal and Veterinary Sciences November
2017 | Volume 5 | Issue 11 | Page 452