Table 2.

Effects of dietary supplementation of Echinacea purpurea polysaccharides (EP) on growth performance of broilers.

Items	Groups1				SEM	P-value
	CON	EPL	EPM	EPH		ANOVA	Linear	Quadratic
1–21 d
ADG, g	29.22	29.33	29.63	30.25	0.562	0.934	0.509	0.800
ADFI, g	43.19	43.84	44.02	44.26	0.758	0.972	0.645	0.893
F/G	1.48	1.49	1.49	1.47	0.016	0.953	0.752	0.839
22–42 d
ADG, g	73.83	69.19	69.39	67.66	1.682	0.645	0.260	0.492
ADFI, g	140.31	138.17	138.76	133.26	2.662	0.839	0.402	0.684
F/G	1.91	2.00	2.00	1.97	0.033	0.746	0.616	0.551
1–42 d
ADG, g	52.07	49.75	49.99	49.42	0.911	0.769	0.392	0.632
ADFI, g	92.93	92.15	92.55	89.84	1.339	0.876	0.470	0.735
F/G	1.79	1.86	1.86	1.82	0.023	0.715	0.714	0.515
Total mortality, %	4.44a	4.17a	2.50b	2.50b	0.142	<0.001	<0.001	<0.001

ADG = average daily gain; ADFI = average daily feed intake; F/G = feed-to-weight ratio; CON = control; SEM = standard error of the mean.

Within a row, means without a common superscript letter differ at P < 0.05.

¹CON, EPL, EPM, and EPH, represent EP addition levels of 0.0, 0.3%, 0.6%, and 0.9% in the diet, respectively (n = 6).