Effects of High and Low Swelling Bentonite (Natural and Processed) on Broiler Chickens Performance

This experiment was conducted with broiler chickens to evaluate the effects of High and Low Swelling Bentonite (Natural and Processed by CuSo4) supplementation in diets on performance and carcass traits. A total of 300 day-old Aryan broiler’s chicks were used in a completely randomized design with 5 dietary treatments. Six pen replicates of 10 chicks were assigned to each of five dietary treatments, which included: 1) corn-soybean meal basal diet(control); 2) basal diet supplemented with % 1 high swelling bentonite(HSB); 3) basal diet supplemented with % 1  processed high swelling bentonite (PHSB); 4) basal diet supplemented with % 1 low swelling bentonite(LSB); and 5) basal diet supplemented with % 1 processed low swelling bentonite(PLSB). Body weight and feed intake were recorded weekly over 42 d. Results showed that HSB supplemented diets significantly decreased body weight and feed intake,  and increased feed: gain ratio in comparison to other treatments. Also, the production index in birds fed HSB diet, were lower than birds fed on diets containing PHSB(P < 0.05). PHSB addition to diets significantly decreased (P < 0.05) the relative weights of gut and liver when compared to control P < 0.05).  These results indicated that processed HSB by CuSo4 have better effects on growth performance, mortality reduction and improvement of production index broilers compared to HSB. It seems that using processed high swelling bentonite in diets contaminated by mold’s toxins to be better than   low swelling bentonits