For decades, antibiotics have been applied in poultry diets as growth promoter. However, the occurrence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria resulted in the banning of antibiotic feed additives in poultry diets. Also, poultry diets are generally based on corn and soya bean meal and these ingredients are poor in antioxidants. Thus, inclusion of synthetic antioxidants
in broiler chicken diets could help alleviate the negative effects of stressful environmental condition. However, it has been shown that synthetic antioxidant compounds have toxic or mutagenic or both effects in poultry so, there is growing interest in sources of natural growth promoters and antioxidants One natural source that could be a good candidate as antibiotic and antioxidant is purslane (Portulaca oleracea), which served as an edible vegetable in several countries