the ameliorative effect of mycosorb in aflatoxin contaminated diet of broiler chickens

This experiment was conducted to study the effect of aflatoxins (af) on broiler perfor-mance, organ weight, plasma characteristics, protein digestibility, and metabolizable energy of the diets. dietary treatments were: 1) control diet based on corn and soybean meal; 2, 3 and 4) control diet plus 1 mg kg^-1 af, 1 mg kg^-1 af and 0.25% mycosorb, and 0.25% mycosorb, respectively. the results in the aflatoxins and aflatoxins+ mycosorb treatments showed that dietary af, significantly decreased the feed intake and weight gain as compared to the control diet (p<0.001). treatment 2 resulted in inferior feed conversation ratio in comparison to the control diet (p<0.05). uric acid and total protein in the second and third, and phosphorous only in the third treatment were significantly lower than the control (p<0.05). the in-vivo protein and dry matter digestibility, apparent metaboliz-able energy (ame) and nitrogen corrected-apparent metabolizable energy (amen) were not affected by the treatment (p>0.05). aflatoxin resulted in the proventriculus enlargement, increased liver weight and af deposition in the liver and breast muscle (p<0.05). this study clearly demonstrated that mycosorb was effective in alleviating the adverse effects of dietary aflatoxins in broiler chickens.