It is conceivable that herbal agents could serve as safer alternatives as growth promoters due to their suitability and preference, lower cost of production, reduced risks of toxicity and minimum health hazards. Interestingly recent biological trials of certain herbal formulations in India as growth promoter have shown encouraging results and some of the reports have demonstrated improvement with respect to weight gain, feed efficiency, lowered mortality, increased immunity and increased livability in broiler chicken. Garlic seems to have potential to be used as an alternative to antibiotics and to improve production performance of broilers. Thus, an attempt was made to find out effect of dietary supplementation of garlic (Allium sativum) powder as herbal feed additives on acceptability, growth performance, mortality carcass traits and economics of broiler production.
To conduct the study a total of one hundred and eighty, day old broiler chicks of Cobb-400 strain were divided into three treatment groups with 4 replicates of 15 chicks in each using completely randomized design (CRD). All experimental chicks were randomly assigned to 12 pens. There was one control group (T1) fed on basal diet without any supplement and two treatment groups supplemented with 0.1 % garlic powder (T2) and 0.5 % garlic powder (T3). Garlic powder was mixed with control diet as per the proportion. The experiment was carried out for 6 weeks by dividing into two phases starter (0-3 wk) and finisher (4-6 wk). Feed intake and growth performance, were studied. Feed intake, body weight, body weight gain were recorded weekly. Average feed intake in gram/chick/week was calculated by dividing the total amount of feed by the number of chicks in the particular pen on particular week. The weekly average body weight gain was calculated by difference between the body weight of current and earlier weeks.
The body weight of birds was higher (P<0.001) in garlic supplemented birds as compared to  without supplemented control, with better weight in 0.1 % garlic powder (T2) supplemented birds as compared to  0.5 % garlic powder (T3) supplemented birds. Body weight gain was differ significantly at the end of 1st ,2nd ,3rd, 4th week of age with better gain in 0.1 % garlic powder supplemented birds as compared to without supplemented control and 0.5 % garlic powder supplemented birds. The body weight gain of 6th week differ significantly (P<0.001) with better gain in 0.1 % garlic powder supplemented birds followed by 0.5 % garlic supplemented birds and subsequently without supplemented control.
The overall body weight gain was higher (P<0.001) in 0.1 % garlic supplemented birds subsequently by 0.5 % garlic supplemented birds as compared to  without supplemented control. The total feed intake (0-6 wk) was significantly (P<0.05) superior in birds supplemented with 0.1 % garlic (T2) as compared to birds that were supplemented with 0.5 % garlic (T3) and without supplementation (T1). Dietary supplementation of garlic @ 0.1 % in broiler diet had beneficial effect on body weight gain, feed intake, feed conversion ratio and dressed yield. Dietary supplementation of 0.1% garlic had beneficial effect in broilers for improving performance and also serves as one of the potential alternative to antibiotic growth promoter as well as reducing the cost of production in commercial broiler farming.

Keywords: Farming; Industry, Weight Gain; Supplementation; Herbal Promoters.