Salvia Miltiorrhiza Reinstates Growth Plate Width, Reduces Liver Oxidative Stress and Toxicity in Avian Tibial Dyschondroplasia

Tibial dyschondroplasia (TD) is skeletal abnormality in rapidly growing birds causing carcass downgrading and severe welfare problems. Present study was aimed to determine specificity of salvia miltiorrhiza (SM) on growth plate width, liver oxidative stress and toxicity in avian TD. One hundred and fifty broiler chicks were equally distributed into three groups: Control, Thiram (50 mg/kg/d) and SM (10 mg/kg/d) treated. Results showed that thiram caused lameness, decrease in alkaline phosphatase (ALP) activity and increase in alanine aminotransferase (ALT) and aspartate aminotransferase (AST) activities in the serum along with decrease in level of antioxidant enzymes and significantly increase in the MDA contents in TD afflicted chickens compared to control group. The SM administration to TD affected birds significantly ameliorated lameness, stimulated ALP level with a decrease in ALT and AST contents, increase in antioxidant parameter and decrease in MDA contents significantly (P<0.05). SM treatment of TD-afflicted birds prevented lameness and reinstated antioxidant imbalance. SM may be effective for the treatment and control of TD and minimizing the liver damages caused by thiram in broiler chickens.