Every animal is as good as what it eats so the availability of good poultry nutrition is crucial to the improvement of poultry products. The competition between humans and the domestic fowl for some feedstuffs greatly hampers the production of quality meat and eggs. This competition affects the relative availability and affordability of the basic feed ingredients used in poultry nutrition. The study was carried out to evaluate the effect of ginger (Zingiber officinale) and garlic (Allium sativum) on the performance, hematology and serum indices of laying hens. The research was carried out at the National Cereal research Institute experimental farm, Moor Plantation, Ibadan where seventy-two points of lay hens were randomly allotted into six dietary treatments of 12 birds per treatment in a Completely Randomized Design. The diets were formulated to contain 0% ginger and 0% garlic, 1% ginger and 1% garlic, 2% ginger and 2% garlic, 3% ginger and 3% garlic, 3% ginger and 0% garlic, and 0% ginger and 3% garlic to represented treatments 1,2,3,4,5 and 6 respectively. Significant differences (p< 0.05) were observed in performance which includes weight gain, feed conversion ratio and hen day production. There were significant (p< 0.05) influences in the haematology and serum indices such as Packed cell volume, red blood cell, haemoglobin, white blood cell, mean cell volume, mean corpuscular haemoglobin concentration, while there were no significant differences in the cholesterol in the serum. The results of the haematology shows that the immunity increased, which is an indication that the spices (ginger and garlic) are good sources of vitamins and minerals and the inclusion of ginger and garlic at 2% ginger and 2% garlic can be fed to laying hens without detrimental effect on the performance and health of the birds.

Keywords: Garlic; Ginger; Haematology; Performance; Serum