The use of radiation to suppress the impact of aflatoxinb1 contaminated diets on the productive performance and immunological response of laying hens

Abstract EN

Detoxification of aflatoxin (AF) from contaminated food and feedstuffs remains a major problem and there is a great demand for an effective decontamination technology.

A recent approach to the problem is irradiation of food to destroy AFB1.In this study, the reduction of aflatoxicosis in Golden Montazah (GM) local laying hens that were fed contaminated diets, was treated using gamma (γ) irradiation.

This research included two phases: The first one (experimental duration) in which laying hens were fed (3 weeks) on artificially contaminated diets with 0.2 mg AFB1 kg−1 and subjected to 0, 10, 20 and 30 kGy gamma irradiation.

The second phase (recovery duration), the hens were fed non-contaminated diets for another 3 weeks to study the withdrawal time required for bringing back the flock to its normal production.

After six weeks of feeding, the hens were slaughtered.

The significant adverse effect of AFB1 on the feed intake, egg mass, feed conversion ratio (FCR), egg production, egg quality (shell weight, egg width, shell thickness and egg shape index), internal egg quality (albumin height, yolk height, yolk weight, albumin index, yolk index and haugh unit), relative organ weights( kidney, spleen and heart), and residues of AFB1 in eggs , breast muscle and organs (kidney , spleen and heart) were evaluated and hematological parameters(Hemoglobin, total count of red and white blood cells as well as some differential counts of leucocytes (lymphocyte and heterophil percentages) and the immune response to Newcastle Disease Virus (NDV) and Infectious Bronchitis Virus (IBV) were also evaluated.

The results showed that γ-radiation significantly (P < 0.05) reduced the deleterious effects of AFB1 on feed intake, egg mass and FCR ratio and the reduction was proportional with irradiation dose.

A significant increase was observed in the mean egg production of laying hens fed on diets contaminated with AFB1 and irradiated with γ-rays at 10, 20 and 30 kGy, compared with hens fed diet non contaminated with AFB1.

However, no significant (P< 0.05) differences were observed in external and internal egg quality parameters for hens fed either non-irradiated AFB1-contaminated or irradiated AFB1-contaminated diets.

There was an increase in relative weights of most observed organs of hens fed AFB1-contaminated diets, as a result of radiation; the relative organs weight became normalized.

It was found that AFB1 residues in eggs and organs decreased as the irradiation dose increased with the lowest residues in hens fed contaminated diets irradiated at 30 kGy.

The productive performance was significantly improved in laying hens fed irradiated AFs-contaminated diets and the improvement was parallel with irradiation dose.

Moreover, gamma irradiation processing of AFB1 contaminated diet exhibited a significant improvement in some hematological parameters.

This includes haemoglobin, red blood cells, white blood cells, heterophils, lymphocytes and the immune response to Newcastle Disease Virus (NDV) and Infectious Bronchitis Virus (IBV).

Overall, recovery period diets non-contaminated with AFB1 showed improvements in all measured indices especially for those fed before feeding irradiated contaminated diet.

30 kGy radiation dose was more effective in this respect.

In conclusion, AF-contaminated feed irradiated with γ-rays significantly reduced the negative effects of AFs toxicity.

Therefore, using