Mycotoxins in poultry feed and feed ingredients in Nigeria

Oyekemi O Akinmusire,Abdul-Dahiru El-Yuguda,Jasini A Musa,Yinka M Somorin,Chibundu N Ezekiel,Michael Sulyok,Oluwawapelumi A Oyedele,Rudolf Krska

doi:10.1007/s12550-018-0337-y

Abstract

Mycotoxins are toxic secondary fungal metabolites that can negatively affect animal productivity when ingested through feed. In order to assess mycotoxin contamination of poultry feed and feed ingredients vis-a-vis source tracking of feed contamination in Nigeria, 102 samples of feed (n = 30) and feed ingredients (n = 72) were collected from in-house mills of poultry farms across 12 states of Nigeria and analyzed for multiple mycotoxins using LC/MS-MS. One hundred and forty microbial metabolites were detected in the feed and feed ingredients. The most frequent mycotoxin in the feed was fumonisin B1, occurring in 97% of the samples at mean concentration of 1014 μg kg−1. AFB1 occurred in 83% of the feed samples at mean concentration of 74 μg kg−1 and in all feed ingredients except fish meal and other cereals (millet and rice). Feed samples analyzed in this study were contaminated with at least four mycotoxins: aflatoxins and fumonisin co-occurring in 80% of the samples. Peanut cake and maize contributed the most to the levels of aflatoxin and fumonisin, respectively, in the feed. Consequently, there is a need to explore other cereal- and protein-based ingredients for compounding feeds in order to reduce the risk associated with high mycotoxin (e.g. aflatoxin) intake in poultry.

Highlights

Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.The poultry industry in Nigeria is an essential subsector of agriculture that provides food, employment, and other economic resources for the country (Ezekiel et al 2012a)
The occurrence of mycotoxins in feed ingredients depends on several factors that include climatic conditions, diversity of fungi contaminating the crops, harvesting methods of the individual crops, storage practices, and seasonal variations, while the types and levels of mycotoxins in the feed largely depend on the mycotoxins in the individual feed ingredients, the mix/ proportion of feed ingredients, feed processing techniques, and storage practices (Warth et al 2012; Ezekiel et al 2014)
The poultry feed samples included growers’ mash, finisher feed, and layers’ mash, and the collection depended on poultry farm specialization

Summary

Introduction

Several mycotoxins, including aflatoxins (AFs), cyclopiazonic acid (CPA), fumonisins (FUMs), nivalenol (NIV) and zearalenone (ZEN) have been reported to contaminate poultry feed and their ingredients (Labuda et al 2005; De Boevre et al 2012; Ezekiel et al 2012a; Njobeh et al 2012; Rodrigues and Naehrer 2012; Abia et al 2013a; Kana et al 2013; Streit et al 2013a, 2013b). The occurrence of mycotoxins in feed ingredients depends on several factors that include climatic conditions, diversity of fungi contaminating the crops, harvesting methods of the individual crops, storage practices, and seasonal variations, while the types and levels of mycotoxins in the feed largely depend on the mycotoxins in the individual feed ingredients, the mix/ proportion of feed ingredients, feed processing techniques, and storage practices (Warth et al 2012; Ezekiel et al 2014)

Objectives

Methods

Results