Effects of Feeding Mature White Leghorn Hens Diets that Contain Deoxynivalenol (Vomitoxin)

Abstract

Mature White Leghorn hens that had been fed a commercial laying diet were changed to a wheat-based diet over a period of 42 days. Two groups were formed based on equivalent egg production and body weights and randomly assigned to either a control (noncontaminated) wheat diet or a naturally contaminated deoxynivalenol (DON, vomitoxin) wheat diet (18 mg DON/kg). Hens were provided their respective diets and water ad libitum for 112 days along with 16 hr of light. The DON-contaminated diet did not significantly influence hen body weights, hen day egg production, egg weights, or efficiency of feed utilization. Internal egg quality, as measured by albumin height, was slightly, although significantly, improved by feeding the DON-contaminated wheat diet. Egg shell weight and percent egg shell were slightly, although significantly, decreased by feeding the DON-contaminated diet, whereas shell thickness was not altered. No deleterious effects were observed in fertility, hatchability, or chick weights at hatch. The results indicate that laying hens are affected only slightly when fed naturally contaminated wheat diets containing approximately 18 mg DON/kg for 112 days.

Effects of Feeding Deoxynivalenol (DON, Vomitoxin)-Contaminated Wheat to Female White Leghorn Chickens from Day Old Through Egg Production

“…Feeding DON-contaminated wheat did not significantly affect fertility, hatchability of fertile eggs, hatch of total eggs set, or chick weights at hatch. These data agree with the results of Hamilton et al (1985a), Moran et al (1983), and Kubena et al (1987).…”

“…In the present study, significant differences in body weights due to dietary treatment, were not observed at any of the time intervals between 24 and 48 wk of age. These results agree with Hamilton et al (1985a), Moran et al (1983), and Kubena et al (1987) who also found no significant differences in body weights at these ages.…”

“…The results show that DON caused only slight effects on the parameters measured and indicate that laying strain chicks and laying hens may be more tolerant of DON than rapidly growing broiler chickens and some other animals. These findings support the short-term studies of Moran et al (1983) and Lun et al (1986) using high levels of DON (50 and 83 mg DON/kg, respectively), the longer term studies of Hamilton et al (1983Hamilton et al ( , 1985a using levels of DON less than 5 mg/kg, and the long-term study of Kubena et al (1987) with relatively high levels of DON (18 mg/kg), in that DON had only slight effects on most of the parameters measured. The lack of agreement on some parameters may be due to quantity of DON in the diet, length of exposure, time in life-cycle of exposure, dietary factors (including source of wheat), breed or strain of chickens, environmental factors, or some other unidentified factors.…”

“…Beginning with the 3rd 28-day period and continuing for the remainder of the experiment, percent hen day egg production was significantly higher for hens in the DON treatment group. Kubena et al (1987) also observed increased egg production (nonsignificant) for the hens fed DON. As the wheat diets used in the study reported herein were formulated with DON-contaminated wheat from the same shipment, the increase in egg weights and egg production may be due to wheat source.…”

“…Hamilton et al (1983) in additional studies fed naturally contaminated wheat diets containing as much as 4.9 mg DON/ kg for 24 wk and observed no significant effect on these parameters; however, trends were noted toward lower values with higher DON feeding levels. Kubena et al (1987) fed naturally contaminated wheat diets containing 18 mg DON/kg to mature laying hens for 16 wk and found no significant effects on body weights, hen day egg production, egg weights, or efficiency of feed utilization. Egg shell weight and percent egg shell were slightly, although significantly, decreased by feeding the DON-contaminated wheat diet.…”