Few researches have been conducted with purslane in poultry.
Aydin and Dogan (2010) reported that supplementation of laying hens diets with 0.1 or 0.2% of dried purslane herb increased egg weight, egg production and feed efficiency. Jian et al. (2013) reported an improvement in growth performance by inclusion of 2, 20 or 40 mg/mL purslane polysaccharides in the broiler chicken drinking water. Zhao et al. (2013) also indicated that inclusion of 0.2% and 0.4% of purslane extracts in the diet increased body weight gain and
lowered feed conversion ratio as well as improved the intestinal microbial population in the intestine of broiler chickens. However, the effects of purslane herb powder on broiler chickens are still less known. Recently, Ghorbani et al. (2013) reported that diet supplemented
with 2% purslane powder increased blood superoxide dismutase and lowered serum MDA of broiler chickens. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to evaluate the suitability of purslane
herb powder on growth performance, antioxidant status, carcass characteristics and serum metabolites in broiler chickens.