Macleaya cordata helps improve the growth-promoting effect of chlortetracycline on broiler chickens.

Chlortetracycline (CTC), one kind of common antibiotic for prevention and treatment of various diseases, also exhibits good performance in accelerating the growth of livestock. Macleaya cordata, a traditional Chinese medicine, is usually used as a natural additive in livestock because of its anti-microbial, anti-fungal, anti-inflammatory, and pesticidal activity. In this work, we studied whether M. cordata helps regulate the growth-promoting effect of CTC on broiler chickens. It is demonstrated that M. cordata improves the growth-promoting effect of CTC on growth performance indices of broiler chickens, such as survival rate, daily weight, and feed to weight rate. M. cordata also delays the maximum of CTC residues in plasma. It may depend on the higher values of operational taxonomic unit (OTU) and the indices of α diversity driven by simultaneous use of CTC and M. cordata.