Protective Effect of Date Pits on Growth Performance, Carcass Traits, Blood Indices, Intestinal Morphology, Nutrient Digestibility, and Hepatic Aflatoxin Residues of Aflatoxin B1-Exposed Broilers

Abdulrahman S. Alharthi, Ali R. Al Sulaiman, Riyadh S. Aljumaah, Abdulaziz A. Alabdullatif, Ahmed A. Elolimy, Abdulmohsen H. Alqhtani, Maged A. Al-Garadi and Alaeldein M. Abudabos
Additional contact information
Abdulrahman S. Alharthi: Department of Animal Production, College of Food and Agriculture Sciences, King Saud University, P.O. Box 2460, Riyadh 11451, Saudi Arabia
Ali R. Al Sulaiman: National Center for Environmental Technology, Life Science and Environment Research Institute, King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology, P.O. Box 6086, Riyadh 11442, Saudi Arabia
Riyadh S. Aljumaah: Department of Animal Production, College of Food and Agriculture Sciences, King Saud University, P.O. Box 2460, Riyadh 11451, Saudi Arabia
Abdulaziz A. Alabdullatif: Department of Animal Production, College of Food and Agriculture Sciences, King Saud University, P.O. Box 2460, Riyadh 11451, Saudi Arabia
Ahmed A. Elolimy: National Research Centre, Department of Animal Production, Giza 12622, Egypt
Abdulmohsen H. Alqhtani: Department of Animal Production, College of Food and Agriculture Sciences, King Saud University, P.O. Box 2460, Riyadh 11451, Saudi Arabia
Maged A. Al-Garadi: Department of Animal Production, College of Food and Agriculture Sciences, King Saud University, P.O. Box 2460, Riyadh 11451, Saudi Arabia
Alaeldein M. Abudabos: Department of Animal Production, College of Food and Agriculture Sciences, King Saud University, P.O. Box 2460, Riyadh 11451, Saudi Arabia

Agriculture, 2022, vol. 12, issue 4, 1-11

Abstract: This research aimed to assess the influence of date pits (DP) on reducing toxic influences of aflatoxin B1 (AFB1) in broilers by examining the growth performance, carcass characteristics, serum indices, ileum morphology, apparent nutrient digestibility, and liver AFB1 residues. In total, 360 11-day-old straight-run broilers (Ross 308) were randomly allocated into 6 dietary treatments, with 10 replications of 6 birds each, in a 20-day experiment. The treatments were as follows: standard basal diet (negative control, NC); NC + 0.25 mg/kg AFB1 (positive control, PC); NC + 2% DP; NC + 4% DP; PC + 2% DP; PC + 4% DP. Compared to the NC diet, feeding the PC diet decreased the daily feed intake (DFI) during the grower and overall periods ( p < 0.01); reduced the daily weight gain (DWG) and production efficiency factor (PEF); increased the feed conversion ratio (FCR) during all experimental periods ( p < 0.001); diminished the dressing percentage, breast meat yield, serum concentrations of total protein (TP), albumin (ALB), glucose (GLU), total antioxidant capacity (T-AOC), total superoxide dismutase (T-SOD), villus height (VH), villus surface area (VSA), apparent digestibility of crude protein (CP) and ether extract (EE), apparent metabolizable energy (AME), and nitrogen-corrected AME (AMEn) ( p < 0.001); and raised the proportional liver weight, serum activities of glutamic oxaloacetic transaminase (GOT) and glutamate pyruvate transaminase (GPT), and residues of AFB1 in the liver ( p < 0.001). Compared to the PC diet, feeding the PC + 2% DP or PC + 4% DP diets increased the DWG during finisher and overall periods, PEF during the finisher period, serum levels of TP, GLU, T-AOC, and T-SOD, VH, and apparent digestibility of CP and EE, AME, and AMEn, and decreased FCR during all experimental periods and AFB1 residues in the liver ( p < 0.001). Moreover, feeding the PC + 4% DP diet increased the DWG during the grower period, PEF during the overall period, dressing percentage, serum ALB level, and VSA, and decreased the proportional liver weight and serum GOT and GPT activities when compared to the PC diet ( p < 0.001). To conclude, our findings demonstrate that a dietary addition of 4% DP can deliver a better safeguard against the adverse influences of AFB1 in broiler chickens.

Keywords: aflatoxin B1; broilers; date pits; digestibility; liver health; performance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q1 Q10 Q11 Q12 Q13 Q14 Q15 Q16 Q17 Q18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/12/4/476/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/12/4/476/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jagris:v:12:y:2022:i:4:p:476-:d:781565

Access Statistics for this article

Agriculture is currently edited by Ms. Leda Xuan

More articles in Agriculture from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().