Mycoflora and natural incidence of selected mycotoxins in rabbit and chinchilla feeds

GRECO M.; PARDO A.; LUDEMANN V.; MARTINO P.; POSE G.

SCIENTIFIC WORLD JOURNAL, THE

THESCIENTIFICWORLD LTD

Lugar: New York; Año: 2012 vol. 2012 p. 1 - 6

1537-744X

Mycotoxins are secondary metabolites produced by filamentous fungi that cause a toxic response when ingested by animals or humans. Demand of natural fur, such as those from rabbit and chinchilla, produced under controlled conditions has increased worldwide. The toxicogenic mycoflora contaminating feeds for these animals was enumerated and identified. Six of the major mycotoxins implicated in animal mycotoxicosis were detect and quantified. Moulds count ranged from <10 to 4.7x105 CFU g-1, 14% of the samples exceeded the limit that determine hygienic feed quality. More than twenty species belonging to the five more important micotoxicogenic mould genera were recovered. Among the analyzed mycotoxins, aflatoxins were recovered in 100% of the examined samples, deoxinivalenol in 95%, fumonisins in 100%, ocratoxin A in 98%, T2 toxin in 98% and zearalenone in 100%. Co-occurrence of mycotoxins was observed in 100% of the samples analyzed. Exposure to multiple mycotoxins was thus demonstrated for these animals.