Objective The trial explores the effect of compound plant essential oil from the nutmeg and basill on the performance and intestinal microflora of yellow-feathered broilers.

Method 3 942 1-day-old Jiangcun yellow broilers were divided into three treatments groups (low-dose compound essential oil group, high-dose compound essential oil group and blank control group). The experiment lasted for 60 days. At the age of 60 days, all broilers were weighed, and the number of survival chickens, the number of dead and unqualified chickens, feed consumption of each replicates were recorded, and the percentage of survival chickens, weight gain and feed-gain ratio were calculated. At the same time, 5 chickens were randomly selected from each group and killed with neck cut. The contents of jejunum and cecum were respectively extracted, and bacterial nucleic acid was extracted, the 16S rDNA V3-V4 variable region was high-throughput sequencing to analyze the intestinal microflora of jejunum and cecum of broilers.

Result The feed-gain ratio of the high dose group and the low dose group was 2.40, which was significantly lower than that of the blank control group (2.71, P < 0.01), and the feed conversion rate was increased by 11.4%. The results of jejunum microflora analysis showed that Firmicutes were the dominant bacteria at phylum level followed by Actinobacteriota, and Lactobacillus was the dominant bacteria at genus level. The relative abundance of Verrucomicrobiota in jejunum in high-dose and low-dose groups was significantly lower than that in blank control group (P < 0.05). The relative abundance of Aeriscardovia, Bifidobacterium and Weissella in jejunum of compound essential oil low-dose group was significantly higher than that of blank control group (P < 0.05). The results of cecal microflora analysis showed that Firmicutes and Bacteroidetes were dominant bacteria at phylum level. The relative abundance of Clostridia_vadinBB60_group and Alistipes in high-dose and low-dose compound essential oil groups was significantly lower than that in blank control group (P < 0.05), and that of Clostridia_UCG-014 in high-dose compound essential oil group was significantly lower than that in blank control group (P < 0.05). The relative abundance of Bacteroides in high dose compound essential oil group was significantly higher than that in blank control group and low dose compound essential oil group (P < 0.05), and the relative abundance of Ruminococcus_torques_group in low dose compound essential oil group was significantly higher than that in blank control group (P < 0.05).

Conclusion Feeding nutmeg and basil compound essential oil can promote the growth of beneficial bacteria in jejunum and cecum of yellow-feathered broilers, inhibit the proliferation of harmful bacteria, maintain the balance of bacteria, and promote intestinal health, and obviously improve the performance of yellow-feathered broilers.