Modulation of innate immunity using natural foods and herbal products offers another avenue to enhance poultry health and reduce the negative effects of pathogen infection. hytonutrients,when given as feed additives, stimulate the chicken immune system and enhance host defense against intestinal bacteria and parasite. Capsicum annuum (pepper), Curcuma longa (turmeric), Lentinus edodes (shiitake mushroom), Carthamus tinctorius (safflower), and Cinnamomum cassia(cinnamaldehyde) all enhance innate and acquired immunities to Eimeria avian coccidiosis and NE. Dietary feeding of a naturally occurring mixture of oils and resins (oleoresins) from
C. annuum and C. longa augmented resistance to experimental NE in commercial Ross broilers. At the genetic level, transcriptional changes in chicken genes mediating innate immunity were
associated with dietary feeding of this oleoresin to Ross birds. Since birds were infected with Eimeria maxima on day 14 post-hatch followed by infected C. perfringens on day 18, intestinal change and bird performance caused by NE were observed on day 20. We previously reported that Cobb chickens exhibited both greater body weight loss and intestinal lesions compared with Ross and Hubbard chickens using an experimental model of C. perfringens/E. maxima co-infection to replicate natural NE on day 20. These results suggested that the Cobb breedmay bemore susceptible to NE comparedwith the other 2 broiler lines.