PONE-D-24-54255Effects of dietary of Bacillus coagulans, whey powder, and their interaction on the performance of Lohmann LSL-lite laying hens in the late production phasePLOS ONE

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Reviewer #1: Partly

Reviewer #2: Partly

Reviewer #3: Yes

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2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

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3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

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Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3: No

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5. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: Abstract

line 5. ... to produce high-quality ...

line. correct 106 CFU

Add some factual results in the abstract from the results.

Introduction.

Line 26-27. Please revise. The ban of antibiotics is already a subject treated in many papers. Il will be better to revise the sentence and revised it in a broader content, for example, the ban of antibiotics usage in EU, USA, China, and Brazil. When they have been banned.

Line 28, provide different reference for each alternative provided: for example: development of antibiotic substitutes such as probiotics and postbiotics (https://doi.org/10.3390/ani11123431), botanical plants (https://doi.org/10.3382/ps/pev014) waste materials such as by-products, oilseeds etc ..(https://doi.org/10.3390/agriculture14101811), enzymes (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2024.171757), and so on. Also, mention some effect found, as not all of them have been reported to be suitable.

In the introduction section there is no word about the need to use these dietary ingredients in aged laying hens. Please make some references to this aspect. maybe some comparison with young (first phase of laying) laying hens. Provide a wider background of your study.

line 63-69. There is no word about the late laying phase in the aim of the study.

Material and methods.

The total number of laying hens was 144, which mean 24 per group, and 4 repetitions per each group. Using only 24 hens for a group, is a very low number to draw significant conclusion. The authors should have used at least 30 hens per group for a better robustness of the statistical data in terms of production performances.

Table 1, please provide the ingredients as 100% ingredients. Also, the nutritional/chemical composition of the diets should be provided (CP, EE, CF, ME).

Line 92. why such high temperature?

Line 101. 6 eggs per group? or average egg samples. This is also a very low number of observations to draw meaningful conclusions.

Line 148-153, please revise. Use Capitals when a different sentence begin.

Table 2 and 3 does not make any sense. In Table 2 the average values are provided, ans in table 3 are different average values, but not for all parameters.

Same observation for Table 4 and 5.

In Table 6, the egg weight and shell weight should be provided. The 6 eggs taken into analyses have different weight compared to those presented in the above tables.

Table 6 an 7, the MIX group is missing from the provided results, but is included in the statistical model.

Table 8. the significance is missing, where is the p value presented? Better provide MDA results as a graphical representation.

Discussion

For production performances, the discussion is very scarce, as this aspect is very important for late laying hens production.

Same for egg quality parameters.

Conclusion,

Revise it with some results from this study, not with an assumption.

Figure 1, is labeled as T1, T2, T3 and T4, please revise it according to the groups presented in this study.

Reviewer #2: The manuscript entitled "Effects of Dietary Bacillus coagulans, Whey Powder, and Their Interaction on the Performance of Lohmann LSL-Lite Laying Hens in the Late Production Phase" demonstrates sufficient quality for acceptance into the journal; however, several questions must be addressed prior to publication.

In Table 1, "Composition and Content of Nutrients," the specific nutrients are not clearly delineated.

The justification for the amount of B. coagulans (4 × 10^6 CFU) utilized in the study should be provided with appropriate citations.

Table 1 indicates that the mineral and vitamin premix is not formulated for laying hens.

The formula used for calculating the Feed Conversion Ratio (kg/kg) appears to be erroneous, as the Feed Conversion Ratio is a unitless measure.

Analyses presented in similar tables warrant re-evaluation; for instance, in Table 3, the main and interaction effects analysis is not adequately represented.

In Table 4, the calculation of the conversion factor is incorrect; the feed conversion factor for hens of this age is estimated to be approximately 2, which seems implausible.

Given their relevance, the following articles should be incorporated into the introduction and discussion sections:

Reviewer #3: Effects of dietary of Bacillus coagulans, whey powder, and their interaction on the performance of Lohmann LSL-lite laying hens in the late production phase

L11: fix the number (4*106 CFU) here and everywhere in the manuscript.

L17-18: revise, Furthermore, FCR in the first (75-80 weeks) was affected by the decreased effect of WP and B.

L19: revise, color of the yolk was thicker.

Update reference list in the introduction to include more recent papers. DOI: 10.1080/1828051X.2024.2418409

Revise the introduction.

The birds were giving the treatments at 1 d old or at different age? provide more details

Table 1: provide the chemical composition of the diet. The diet was formulated according to which guideline?

L102-103: 6 eggs were randomly chosen from each treatment in the experiment, and their external and internal quality were assessed. This is an extremely low number of eggs.

Table 2 and 3: all significant 2 ways interactions need to be discussed in the result section.

From table 3: it seems that control was the best treatment, the additives lowered the performance.

What is the difference between data in table5 and table 4?

L225-230: revise this part to reflect the results you got from the experiment.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3: Yes:  Ala Abudabos

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Effects of dietary of Bacillus coagulans, whey powder, and their interaction on the performance of Lohmann LSL-lite laying hens in the late production phase

PONE-D-24-54255R1

Dear Dr. Torki,

We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements.

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Kind regards,

Shengqian Sun

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #1: All comments have been addressed

Reviewer #2: All comments have been addressed

Reviewer #3: All comments have been addressed

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2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

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3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

**********

4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

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5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

**********

6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: No further observations

The authors have carefully revised the manuscript. It can be accepted for publication.

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

Reviewer #3: Effects of dietary of Bacillus coagulans, whey powder, and their interaction on the performance of Lohmann LSL-lite laying hens in the late production

phase Thank you for providing a revised version of the manuscript. No further comments

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7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean? ). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy .

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes:  Hassan Saleh

Reviewer #3: Yes:  Ala Abudabos

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