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چکیده
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Health is an important and determining factor in performance, uniformity, and shelf life due to disease resistance. Many antibodies are found in body fluids and interstitial spaces and have the most effects on removal of extracellular pathogens such as bacteria and parasites [1]. Herbal supplements in poultry diets can increase the number of different types of immune cells, antibody titer, and also growth of lymphoid organs such as spleen and bursa of Fabricius [2]. Harmala with the scientific name of Peganum harmala is a perennial and non fluff plant from the family of Nitrariaceae. Alkaloids are the active compounds of harmala which also known as Beta-Carbolines, and accumulate in parts of the plant seeds and roots. They include Harman, Norharman, Harmine, Harmalol, Harmaline and Vasyzin. It has been reported that dietary inclusion of harmala seed and extract enhanced immunological responses in broiler chicks [3]. In this study, 288 one-day old Ross 308 broiler chicks were randomly assigned to 4 treatments and 4 replicates of 18 birds in each. The experimental treatments were control (diet with no feed additive), diet containing 0.02% Virginiamycin as growth promoter antibiotic, diet containing 0.25% harmala seed powder and diet containing 0.50% harmala seed powder. At 19 day of age, Newcastle disease vaccine was administered orally to all chicks and 6 days thereafter, blood samples were taken from two birds of each cage via wing vein for determination of antibody titer against Newcastle vaccine. At the end of experimental period (42 day of age), two birds from each cage with the closest body weight to the cage mean weight were selected and slaughtered after recording their live body weights and their spleen and bursa of Fabricius gland weights were measured in proportion to live body weight. The data were analyzed in a completely randomized design using GLM procedure of SAS. Comparison of means was conducted by Duncan's multiple range rest. The results of this st
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