The short-term effect of low concentrations of dietary aflatoxin and T-2 toxin on mallard ducklings

Abstract

Two 9-day trials to study effects of dietary mycotoxins were conducted using 6-week-old mallards. Each trial involved three groups of six ducks each, three males and three females per group. One group was fed no myocotoxin (control), one was fed aflatoxin, and the third was fed T-2 toxin. Dietary aflatoxin was 12 ppb in trial 1 and 33 ppb in trial 2; dietary T-2 toxin was 2 ppm in both trials. There were no gross or microscopic lesions in controls or in ducks fed aflatoxin, nor did these groups differ significantly in final body weight or in weights of spleen or bursa of Fabricius. Ducks exposed to T-2 toxin had erosions and/or ulcerations in the oral cavity and esophagus; further, these ducks exhibited a decrease in weights of body, thymus, spleen, and bursa of Fabricius. The only microscopic change seen in lymphoid organs of ducks exposed to T-2 toxin was a moderate decrease of thymic cortical lymphocytes.