EFFECT OF SUPPLEMENTING MILK THISTLE (SILYBUM MARIANUM) SEEDS OR ITS EXTRACT ON SOME PHYSIOLOGICAL TRAITS OF BROILER CHICKENS REARED UNDER HIGH ENVIRONMENTAL TEMPERATURE

This experiment was conducted to study the effect of adding milk thistle seeds to the diet or its extract to drinking water for six hours/day on blood cellular and biochemical parameters, body temperature and liver glutathione of broiler chickens reared under high environmental temperature (30.5-36.5 ºC). A total of 150 unsexed, day old, Ross 308 broiler chicks were used and randomly distributed into five treatments with three replicates per each (10 chick/replicate) as follows: T1 control group without any addition, T2,T3 adding 250 or 500 mg milk thistle extract/liter drinking water respectively, T4,T5 adding 8 or 16 g milk thistle seeds/kg diet respectively. Results showed a significant (p≤ 0.05) decrease in body temperature of T4 group compared with control. Blood cellular traits showed significant (p≤ 0.05) decrease in heterophil% and in heterophil/lymphocyte in T4 group compared with control. Blood biochemical traits indicated a significant (p≤ 0.05) decrease in creatinine in T2 group compared with control while AST was decreased significantly (p≤ 0.05) and total protein was increased in T4 compared with control. Serum ALT, glucose and uric acid didn’t differ significantly between all treatments. Liver glutathione increased significantly (p≤ 0.05) in all supplemented groups compared with control. It can conclude from these results that adding 8g milk thistle seeds/kg diet of broiler chickens reared under high environmental temperature could alleviate the deleterious effect of heat stress.