Chick and duck embryos in the evaluation of pesticide toxicity

Abstract

Several embryonal ages of chick and duck species were evaluated for toxicity quantitation by injecting into the yolk sac doses of 1 mg or less of the following pesticides: Phosdrin, DDVP, Ruelene, dimefox, diazinon, parathion, malathion, Trithion, dimethoate, ethion, carbaryl, Bayer 37344, and Bayer 39007. Chick eggs injected on incubation days 0, 4, and 7 and duck eggs injected on days 0, 4, 7, and 10 appeared to be unsuitable for toxicity studies. This was due to large variation among replications of lack of dose response relationship, or low sensitivity to the specific lethal effect. At mid-incubation of both the species (10 days in chick and 13 days in duck embryos), there was a marked mortality response occurring primarily within 24 hours of injection; in many instances another period of mortality among the survivors was manifest near the hatching. The two avian species injected at mid-incubation age are capable of providing useful data for the assessment of pesticide toxicity. There was a suggestion that duck embryos provide less variable results than chick embryos.