Co-existence of mycotoxins in the diet of layer farms in Java Provinces of Indonesia

Abstract

Mycotoxins adversely affect animal health and production. The presence of multiple mycotoxins may exert greater toxicity than exposure to a single mycotoxin. However, data on the co-occurrence of mycotoxins in animal feed is scarce, especially from Indonesia. This study was conducted to investigate the co-occurrence of the major mycotoxins, namely aflatoxin B1, fumonisin, ochratoxin A, zearalenone and T-2 toxin. A total of 146 samples were collected from layer farms in the provinces of West Java, Central Java and East Java. Mycotoxins were determined by ELISA test using commercial ELISA kits for each mycotoxin. The results showed that there are 96% samples contaminated by multiple mycotoxins, which consisted of 51% samples containing 5 mycotoxins, 28% samples containing 4 mycotoxins, 11% samples containing 3 mycotoxins. and 5% samples containing 2 mycotoxins. This survey also showed that fumonisins is the most common mycotoxin in layer diets, found in 100% of the samples, followed by zearalenone (94%), aflatoxin B1 (88%), ochratoxin (73%) and T-2 (68%). It is concluded that the very high co-occurrence of mycotoxin contamination found in layer diets from Java provinces represents a significant risk to animal health and production due to their potential toxic interactions.