Impact of chestnut (Castanea sativa Mill.) leaf powder and quercetin on production performance and some physiological traits of broilers

This study was conducted in order to find out the effect of chestnut leaf powder and quercetin on the performance, production, and some physiological qualities of broilers. Using 120 broiler chicks birds (40) males and (80) females were used in breeding, of the Ross-308 strain, the experiment included four groups: control (the birds were fed on a standard feed), quercetin (added 400 mg quercetin kg feed-1), chestnut (added 2000 mg of chestnut leaf powder kg feed-1), and quercetin+chestnut (added 200 mg quercetin+1000 mg of chestnut leaf powder kg of feed-1); each treatment included three repetitions. According to the results, there were no significant differences between the coefficients in fattening performance, and physical blood tests did not show a significant effect of adding quercetin and chestnuts singly or jointly as standard feed to the broiler chicken. The addition showed a decrease in the concentration of globulin compared with a decrease in the concentration of cholesterol and low-density lipoproteins. As for antioxidants, the effect of the studied nutrition coefficients showed that there were significant differences between the averages of glutathione (GSH) and glutathione peroxidase (GPX) and the total oxidation state (TOS). The quercetin+chestnut treatment was significantly better than the control treatment, while malondialdehyde (MDA) levels went down. We conclude from this study that the addition of quercetin and chestnut leaves or their combination can improve the antioxidant status and fat content of broilers, although it does not have a clear effect on fattening performance.