Virucidal Essential Oils in Treatment of a Respiratory Complex in Immunosuppressed Broilers

The research covered two aspects of treatment by essential oils of Eucalytpus an d Peppermint. The first study evaluated the essential oil of Eucalyptus spp. an d Peppermint in treatment of immunosuppressed broilers, challenged with Mycoplas ma gallisepticum (MG), live B1 and LaSota Newcastle disease (NDV) vaccine strain s, Infectious Bursal Disease Virus (IBDV), and Infectious Bronchitis Virus (IBV) . Fifty day-old broiler chicks were divided into 5 groups (10 chicks/group). G roups 1 and 2 were challenged with MG, IBDV, and IBV and given live NDV vaccine. The essential oil treatment in groups 1 and 2 was in drinking water at 0.25 ml/ liter of water. Group 3 was challenged and vaccinated with similar strains as g roups 1 and 2, but deprived of the essential oil treatment. NDV-vaccinated grou ps 4 and 5 were deprived of all challenges, while group 4 was administered the e ssential oils. Results showed that the essential oil treatment was able to redu ce morbidity 2 days post the IBV challenge, with a consistent reduction in the f requency of rales at 2, 3 and 4 days post the IBV challenge. Moreover, the trea tment in challenged groups 1 and 2 was also able to reduce the frequency of five out of eight observed lesions. There was no statistical differences in means o f Body Weight Gain between the 5 experimental groups (p greater than 0.05). A c lear improvement in Feed Conversion occurred in challenged and treated groups 1 (3.12) and 2 (3.02), in comparison to the similarly challenged group 3 (3.69) th at was deprived of the treatment (p less than 0.05). The essential oil treatmen t resulted in consistently higher titers to both NDV and IBDV in groups 1 and 2, in comparison to the similarly challenged-untreated group 3. The second part of the thesis was carried out to determine the safety and viruci dal activity of different levels of Eucalyptus-Peppermint essential oil against Avian Influenza Virus (AIV) and Newcastle disease virus (NDV) in presence and ab sence of 1 percent skim milk. All range of concentrations of the essential oil b lend, from 0.00278 to 27.8 percent, were safe when administered in 0.1 ml/chick embryo, resulting in 100 percent survival of embryoes. The virucidal activity ag ainst AIV started at the essential oil concentration of 0.278 percent, only in t he absence of skim milk. The complete virucidal ...