Protective efects of feed additives on broiler chickens exposed to afatoxins-contaminated feed: a systematic review and metaanalysis

Afatoxin contamination in feed is a common problem in broiler chickens. The present systematic review and meta-analysis examined the impact of afatoxin-contaminated feed and the efcacy of various feed additives on the production performance of broiler chickens fed afatoxin-contaminated feed (AF-feed). A total of 35 studies comprising 53 AF-feed experiments were selected following PRISMA guidelines. Feed additives included in the analyses were toxins binder (TB), mannanoligosaccharides (MOS), organic acid (OA), probiotics (PRO), protein supplementation (PROT), phytobiotics (PHY), and additive mixture (MIX). Random efects model and a frequentist network meta-analysis (NMA) were performed to rank the efcacy of feed additives, reported as standardized means diference (SMD) at 95% confdence intervals (95% CI). Overall, broiler chickens fed AF-feed had signifcantly lower fnal body weight (BW) (SMD=198; 95% CI=198 to 238) and higher
feed conversion ratio (SMD=0.17; 95% CI=0.13 to 0.21) than control. Treatments with TB, MOS, and PHY improved the
BW of birds fed AF-feed (P<0.05) to be comparable with non-contaminated feed or control. Predictions on fnal BW from
the broiler-fed afatoxin-contaminated diet were 15% lower than the control diet. Including feed additives in the afatoxins diet could ameliorate the depressive efect. Remarkably, our network meta-analysis highlighted that TB was the highestperforming additive (P-score=0.797) to remedy afatoxicosis. Altogether, several additives, especially TB, are promising to ameliorate afatoxicosis in broiler chickens, although the efcacy was low regarding the severity of the afatoxicosis.