Two groups of 45 Awassi ewes, were fed a control diet (group C) or a diet containing 0.30 poultry litter from laying birds (group PL). The experiment began when the rams were put with the ewes and continued through pregnancy and lactation. Mean weight changes of ewes of both groups were small and not significantly different. The numbers of ewes that lambed and the numbers of lambs weaned, as proportions of the number of ewes mated, were 0.91 and 0.73 respectively for group C, and 0.93 and 0.70 for group PL. The mean weaning weight of lambs of group C (20.6 kg) was just significantly greater than the value for group PL (18.4 kg) but the estimated mean daily milk yields, 0.716 and 0.626 kg respectively, did not differ significantly. Differences in breeding and lactation performance, between ewes given the control and those given the poultry litter diet, were small for all the data obtained. Also, there was no disease problem related to the use of poultry litter; and the food products milk and cheese, from ewes given poultry litter, were just as acceptable as those from ewes given the control diet.

Key words:aflatoxin, broiler, adsorbent compounds, detoxificationThe objective of this study was to investigate the protective effect of dietary natural sorbent-Humate (0.2%) and Hydrated sodium calcium aluminosilicate (HSCAS) (0.5%) on the prevention of aflatoxin (AF) toxicity in the broiler chicken 7-35 days of age. Two hundred and forty broiler chicks were randomly divided into four treatment groups of 4 replicates (each contained 15 chicks). While chicks in group 1 were fed a basal diet free of toxin (control), group 2 chicks were fed a basal diet contaminated with 1ppm AF, the other two groups 3 and 4 were fed contaminated basal diet supplemented with 0.2% Biofarm® Dry humate, and 0.5% HSCAS, respectively. Parameters evaluated were growth performance, some serum constituents, some organs weight, and immune response to Newcastle disease and infectious bursal disease. The results showed that, Aflatoxin (1 ppm/kg) significantly reduced feed intake, weight gain and feed efficiency. Further aflatoxin increased the relative weights of liver, kidney, gizzard and spleen, while the relative weights of thymus and bursa of Fabricius were decreased by AF. Aflatoxin toxin also reduced antibody titres against Newcastle disease and infectious bursal disease. Modified 0.2% Humate significantly (P ≤ 0.05) improved body weight, feed intake, decreased relative organ weights and improved antibody titres, bursa of Fabricius and thymus weights. Hydrated sodium calcium aluminosilicate (0.5%) showed improvement against AF. The results of our experiment showed that 0.2% Humate and 0.5% HSCAS has a positive effect on the growth of broilers. And it could have been a suitable natural supplement for growing broilers against the adverse effects of aflatoxins.

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