Effects of Chinese herbal medicine and palygorskite on immune performance,slaughter performance,and muscle nutrient composition of silkie chickens

HUANG Yaohua; MA Chao; GENG Yiwen; ZHANG Wei; KANG Yuru; SHI Lei; CHEN Guoshun

doi:10.13557/j.cnki.issn1002-2813.2025.10.009

Abstract：The experiment aimed to investigate the effects of dietary supplementation with Chinese herbal medicine and palygorskite on the immune performance,slaughter performance,and muscle nutrient composition of silkie chickens.A total of 180 healthy silkie chickens in the same batch were randomly divided into four groups with three replicates in each group and 15 silkie chickens in each replicate.The control group was fed with basic diet,and the experimental group was fed with experimental diets supplemented with 0.40%Chinese herbal medicine(experimental group 1),0.08%palygorskite(experimental group 2),and 0.40%Chinese herbal medicine+0.08%palygorskite(experimental group 3).The pre-test period was seven days,and the formal test period was 50 days.The results showed that compared with the control group,the concentrations of immunoglobulin A,immunoglobulin G and immunoglobulin M in each experimental group were significantly increased(P<0.05).Compared with the control group,the live body weight,full eviscerated weight,chest muscle weight,and leg muscle weight of silkie chickens in experimental group 1 were significantly increased(P<0.05),the semi eviscerated weight in experimental group 1 and experimental group 2 was significantly increased(P<0.05),and the slaughter weight and abdominal fat weight of each experimental group were significantly increased(P<0.05).Compared with the control group,the total amino acid content of each experimental group was significantly increased(P<0.05),and the total delicious amino acid content of experimental group 1 and experimental group 3 was significantly increased(P<0.05).There was no significant difference in the content of fatty acids between the experimental groups and the control group(P>0.05).The results show that adding 0.40%Chinese herbal medicine and 0.08%palygorskite in the diet can improve the immune performance and slaughter performance of silkie chickens,and increase the content of total amino acids in muscle.