Effect of medicinal herb (emblica officinalis) on growth performance, fecal microbiota and diarrhea prevalence in growing sheep

Medicinal herbs are the source of bioactive compounds beneficialboth for human and animal health. Owing to that, an experiment was conducted to investigate the effects of the medicinal herb (Emblica Officinalis)on growth performance, fecal microbiota and diarrhea prevalencein sheep. A total of 48 growing sheep were randomly allocated to 4 treatments with 3 replications having 4 sheep in each replication in a completely randomized design. The treatments groups were: Control (T0) = Basal diet without Emblica officinalis, T1= Basal diet + 0.4%Emblica officinalis, T2= Basal diet + 0.6% Emblica officinalis; and T3= Basal diet + 0.8% Emblica officinalis. The present study revealed that, average daily gain was significantly improved (P <0.05)in the Emblica officinalissupplemented groups T1, T2 and T3 with highest being observed in T2 compared to T0. While average daily feed intake and feed efficiency was improved in the Emblica officinalisadded groups (T1, T2 and T3) but there were no significant differences (P >0.05). In addition, it was observed that, Emblica officinalis supplementation suppresses the pathogenic E. coli and decreased the diarrhea prevalence in sheep. To sum up, medicinal herb (Emblica officinalis) could be supplemented and T2 could be preferred for sheep production.