Al-Qadisiyah Journal For Agriculture Sciences

This study was conducted in broiler field / college of Agriculture/ Tikrit University during 9-4 to 14-5-2019 to know the effect of adding lemongrass leaves powder to the dietary on meats traits of broilers. 135 chicks Ross-308 were distributed randomly to three treatments, each treatment divided into three replicates (15 birds per replicate). T1 was standard treatment; T2 and T3 were added 1g and 2g of lemongrass per one kg of diet, respectively. The results showed a significant decrease (P≤0.05) in T2 compared with other treatments in cooking loss and water holding capacity, otherwise, T2 increased significantly (P≤0.05) in the thawing loss compared with T1, the treatments did not differ significantly in the dripping loss. T2 and T3 increased significantly in protein percentage compared with T1, while these treatments were decreased significantly (P≤0.05) compared with T1 in the fat and moisture percentages, the per cent of meat ash did not differ significantly among treatments. The Peroxide Value, Thiobarbituric acid and Free Fatty Acids significantly increased (P≤0.05) in T2 and T3 compared with T1. The percentage of all fatty acids like linoleic, oleic, stearic, palmitic and linolenic increased significantly (P≤0.05) in T2 and T3 compared with T1. We conclude from this study that adding lemongrass powder to broiler diets improved most of the physical and chemical traits of meat.