Abstract
Abstract
Several published reports have demonstrated the problems associated with the use of formaldehyde as a disinfectant for incubated eggs. Therefore, the target of this experiment was to explore the efficient power of olive leaves (OL) as a safe alternative disinfectant to formaldehyde on the bacterial contamination of fertile eggs, hatching parameters, and productive and immune indices of hatchlings up to 35 days. A total of 288 eggs were used and distributed equally into four treatment groups, three replicates each, as follows: treatment 1 (T1) was a control, treatment 2 (T2) was eggs disinfected with methyl alcohol, while treatments3 (T3) and 4 (T4) were including eggs disinfected with aqueous and alcoholic extracts of OL, respectively. Compared with T1, the results exhibited that T4 reduced bacterial contamination of eggshells and shortened incubation and hatching times. All groups did not differ significantly among them in terms of hatchability, chick physical characteristics and deformed chicks, total moisture loss from fertile eggs. T4 achieved superiority in dressing percentage and decreased mortality at post-hatch while T2 and T3 consumed less feed intake. Moreover, T3 and T4 activated antibodies titers against Newcastle and Gumboro diseases respectively in blood serum of chicks compared to T1 . Therefore, the extract of OL, particularly the alcoholic extract, appears to be an effective natural disinfectant for hatching eggs and may serve as a substitute for formaldehyde fumigation.