protective effects of milk thistle (silybum marianum) seeds and sodium bentonite in ameliorating the toxic effects of aflatoxin b1 in broiler chicks

background: aflatoxin-contaminated feed cause mortality, suppression of the immune system, reduced growth rates and losses in feed efficiency. an experiment was conducted to evaluate the ability of different levels of sodium bentonite (sb), silybummarianum seeds (sms) and their combination for reducing the adverse effects of aflatoxin b1 (afb1) in broiler chicks. materials and methods: 224 male ross 308 broiler chicks in a completely randomized design based on factorial experiment (2 × 2 × 2) with 2 levels afb (0and 500ppb), 2 levels sms (0 and 0.5%) and 2 levels sb (0 and 0.5%) with 8 treatments, 4 replicates and 7 chickens per each were used from one to 24 days age. results: the results showed that compared with the control group, diets contaminated with afb 1 increased the aminotransferase (ast) and gammaglutamyl transferase (ggt) but decreased serum total protein (tp) and albumin significantly (p≤0.05). sb with afb caused a significant decrease in serum ast and lactate dehydrogenase (ldh) levels and increase albumin significantly (p≤0.05). sms with afb causes a significant decrease in serum urea, ggt and ldh levels significantly (p≤0.05). broiler chickens fed diets containing sb, sms and afb 1 their biochemical indices (ast, ggt, albumin and total protein) were improved significantly compare to basal diet contaminated with aflatoxin (p≤0.05). conclusion: the results showed that the combination of sb and the sms were more beneficial as separate application of them for decreased toxic effect of aflatoxin b 1  in diets. k e y w o r ds: aflatoxin b 1 , blood parameters, milk thistle, sodium bentonite