Spices and herbs in broilers nutrition: hot red pepper (Capsicum annuum L.) and its mode of action

Spices, herbs and medicinal plants as a feed supplements present promising alternatives to antibiotic growth promoters due to their high content of bioactive substances. A large number of experiments have confirmed a wide range of activities of spices in poultry nutrition such as stimulation of feed intake, antimicrobial, antioxidative and coccidiostat stimulation, increase of body weight gain, lowering the mortality rate and improvement of the blood and tissue lipid profile. The present paper gives a review on the characteristics of hot red pepper and its mode of action in broilers nutrition.