Artemisia annua improves chickens performances but has little anticoccidial effect in broiler chickens

. Coccidiosis is a parasitic disease that inflicts severe economic losses for the poultry industry. The decades of anticoccidials usage for control of this disease has led to the development of resistant Eimeria strains to all known drugs so botanicals seem to represent a good alternative. Artemisia annua , a herb native from China, has been intensively studied especially for its anticoccidial activities against E. tenella . In this study we aimed to assess the anticoccidial effect of dried leaves of A. annua administered in diet of broiler chickens infected with a suspension containing E. acervulina , E. tenella and E. maxima sporulated oocysts. For this purpose we designed a battery trial by randomly dividing 147 chickens into 7 groups of 21 chickens each. The experimental groups consisted in: two control groups (one positive, infected group and one negative, uninfected group), one group infected and supplemented with 125 ppm monensin in diet, two groups infected and supplemented with A. annua German cultivar, with a concentration of 5 and 50 ppm of artemisinin and two groups infected and supplemented with A. annua Romanian cultivar, with a concentration of 5 and 21.3 ppm of artemisinin. The Romanian cultivar of A. annua improved significantly the weight gain, even than uninfected chickens ( p ≤0.004).These chickens had also an efficient use of feed, comparable or superior to the uninfected chickens. However, the decrease of number of oocysts/g of faeces and the reduction of intestinal lesion score in the chickens receiving the A. annua diets, no matter what cultivar, was not satisfactory. A. annua could be used with success as a feed additive in broiler chickens by improving the production performances, but its anticoccidial effect needs to be further studied.