Effect of bread yeast and anti-mycotoxin, bentonite on the qualitative traits of red lying hens

This study was conducted to investigate improving the specific characteristics of egg-laying hens using bentonite and bread yeast to reduce the negative effects of on the qualitative traits of the produced eggs. A total of 76 laying hens, Lohman brown at the age of 40 weeks, distributed into five treatments replicated three times that each replication includes five hens. The first treatment was the control, without any additive and the second, third, fourth, and fifth treatments received adding 3mg aflatoxin/kg feed, 3g bentonite, 5g bread yeast, and 3g bentonite and 5g bread yeast, respectively. The 3mg aflatoxin/kg feed resulted in deterioration of the qualitative traits of the eggs such as the egg weight, shell weight, albumen index, yolk index, hue unit, and SWUSA. All other treatments showed significant enhancement in the studied qualitative traits of the eggs except the thickness of the shell. Treatment 5 was the best treatment, at the age of 49-50 weeks, indicating that the used feed additives reduced or prevented negative effects caused by mycotoxin leading to deteriorating the red hens egg quality.