Mycotoxin report and Management

Mycotoxin problem is difficult to manage when multiple mycotoxins are present in feed. Our research should be focussed on multiple mycotoxins in feed. Recently I conducted an experiment in broiler chickens involving ochratoxin A levels in feed. It was found that broiler chickens can tolerate up to 50 ppb of dietary ochratoxin A without any adverse effect on their performance, organ weight and biochemical parameters.
Dr. Ram Singh Bibyan.

I agreed with Mr. Raul Felman concerning mycotoxin testing and owners investing. In the Caribbean especially in Trinidad, it's destroying the bird altogether. The mould growth underneath the gizzard sheet is overwhelming. My opinion is more needs to be done with grain production but climate change might be an issue also storage management.

Toxins are everywhere in feed raw materials. I think stress aggravate the situation in broiler birds at the time of 21-35 days and causes issues. It is multiple levels of different toxins play their role.

Thank you for an excellent work and reporting. The best preventive strategy against mycotoxin in feed is the best selection of grains and raw material, compromising on sub-standard grains a little bit with cheaper prices that will cost you more in terms of bird performance. Even low or mild levels of mycotoxins in feed do not show the deleterious signs and symptoms but still there is something wrong at sub-clinical levels and you have to pay in case of performance and efficiency.

Thank you very much for the report and management of mycotoxin. Actually, mycotoxin is a very critical issue in the livestock production particularly poultry production. Most of the feed ingredients used in compounding poultry feeds such as maize, sorghum and sunflower seed meal are prone to mycotoxin. These are toxic substances produced by different types fungi and have different effects depending on type mycotoxin, dosage, species and animal affected. Mycotoxin producing fungi thrive better in warm humid conditions. The feed ingredients might be contaminated with fungi in the field prior harvesting and during storage particularly if grains or seeds contain high moisture content in high humid conditions. Management of mycotoxin should start from the field by controlling growth of fungi in the field, harvesting well dried ingredients, proper drying of ingredients prior storage, avoiding storage of feed and feed ingredients in high humid stores. However, the most practical control of mycotoxin is regular testing for mycotoxin in lab, prior feed compounding or use of different mycotoxin binders.

Mycotoxins are metabolized in the alimentary canal, liver or kidneys of the poultry in accordance with their chemical properties. Their transfer to poultry meat and eggs leads to undesirable health effects in humans, leading to major concerns in public health. Contamination of the feeds with fungi both damages their organoleptic properties and increases poisoning risk by decreasing their nutritional value. Toxicity of the mycotoxins depends on the amount of absorption, number of the metabolites that are formed, exposure period and sensitivity of the animal.

I also agree with most of the comments concerning mycotoxins in poultry production. Preventive measures should be a foremost step especially in commonly used feed ingredients known to be major sources of contamination. Farmers should be educated on matters concerning mycotoxin contamination at farm level; introduce hands-on analysis methods close to the farming communities so as to encourage farmers to invest in the analysis. This is largely because mycotoxins have been shown to be tasteless, colorless & odorless; these properties might challenge farmers(especially in developing nations) in conceptualizing the existence of these fungal metabolites. I'm confident that if this is done, contamination and losses can be minimized at farm level. Processors to come in second.

Completely agree with you as in day to day production we have to take care of multiple toxins entirely different from what we do in laboratory.
The synergistic action between toxins play a major role as much as 2ppb of aflatoxin may cause immunosuppression without much affection seen over in organs or any other system of birds body resulting in lower antibody count in response to routine vaccination and also threats for secondary bacterial infection of if otherwise normal inhabitants of poultry gut for example e. Coli, clostridia, also predisposes for some protozoal disease if intestinal wall get damage by NE.
I think the problem is having gravity higher than what we think.

I agree to all of the above comment, why we use cheap raw material? In livestock and poultry feed all the owner of the mill purchase cheaper raw material, which is the hub of mycotoxin and they do not use toxin binder and yeast such as saccharomyces cerevisiae to protect our herd from toxicity. When raw material is cheaper it's mean that these ingredients are not good stored, so they get moisture and fungus mold develop
and these ingredients than sale in market on low price which is primary hub of mycotoxin.

Frontiers in Microbiology 10: 2528, 1-18. https://doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2019.02528.
Aflasafe seems promising preventive intervention to minimize aflatoxins at harvest time. Genetic resources should also be pursued. Insect damage and nutrient loss continue in absence of safe moisture management after harvest. In absence of the above interventions, the binders are attractive approaches to minimize adverse effects of mycotoxins on birds and animals.