Hassan Algobarah , Hashim Al-Mudyir , Yousef Alyousef and Gamal Rayan *
Animal and Fish Production Department, College of Agricultural and Food Sciences, King Faisal University, Al-Ahsa, 31982, Saudi Arabia
*Corresponding author: gahmed@kfu.edu.sa
This study was conducted to investigate the influence of dietary Hibiscus sabdariffa powder supplementation on the growth performance of Ross 308 broiler chickens. A total of 120 day-old broiler chicks were randomly assigned to four experimental groups that received diets supplemented with 0.0, 0.5, 1.0, or 1.5% H. sabdariffa powder. Each treatment consisted of three replicates with 10 birds per replicate, and the feeding trial lasted for 35 days. Growth performance was assessed by measuring initial body weight (IBW), final body weight (FBW), daily feed intake (DFI), and feed conversion ratio (FCR). The collected data were subjected to one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA), while Pearson's correlation analysis was performed to examine the associations among the measured growth performance parameters. No significant differences were observed in initial body weight (IBW) among the experimental treatments (P>0.05), indicating uniformity of the chicks at the start of the trial. In contrast, dietary inclusion of Hibiscus sabdariffa significantly enhanced both FBW (P=0.0092) and FCR (P<0.0001). Birds receiving 1.0 and 1.5% supplementation achieved the highest FBW values (1990.7 and 1992.0 g, respectively), compared with 1750.0 g in the control group. The best feed conversion ratio was observed in birds fed 1.0% H. sabdariffa (1.53), representing an improvement of approximately 22.7% over the control group (1.98). A significant effect of dietary treatment on daily feed intake (DFI) was observed (P=0.0508), with improved growth performance occurring without a corresponding increase in feed consumption. Correlation analyses indicated that enhanced body weight was associated with improved feed efficiency rather than increased feed intake. Dose–response evaluation further demonstrated that productive performance improved progressively up to 1.0% supplementation, after which no substantial additional benefits were observed. In conclusion, dietary inclusion of 1.0% Hibiscus sabdariffa powder improved growth performance and feed utilization efficiency in broiler chickens and may serve as a promising natural phytogenic feed additive for poultry production.