Application of aromatic plant extract apples in nutrition chinchillas (Chinchilla lanigera)

In this paper we studied the effect of apple aroma as a food additive in a concentration of 0.04% on performance and reduction of fur chewing and basic production parameters. During the experimental period (30 days), the experimental group of chinchillas that was fed with the pellet mixture with the addition of the aroma showed a statistically significant decrease in fur chewing (p<0.01) in comparison with the control group. Also, only 5% of the animals in the experimental group chewed fur out of the total number in that group (20 chinchillas), whereas the percentage of fur chewing with the control group with the same number of animals was 30%. The positive effects of aroma addition were noted for other examined factors as well, since the experimental group of chinchillas showed a bigger increase in body mass (1.36%), better growth (21.18%), increased food consumption (0.48%) and better conversion (17.13%) in comparison with the control group that was not fed with the aromatic additive.