Growth and Tolerance of Chicks Fed Aflatoxin Containing Diets

A growth study was conducted on one-day old commercial cobb chicks to determine the dietary toleration level of anatoxin. The chicks were randomly distributed into three groups of 40 each and fed a basal diet with added levels of 0, 1.0 and 1.5 ppm anatoxin respectively for a period of 7 weeks. The basal diet for these groups contained 0.19, 0.15 and 0.21 ppm anatoxin respectively. The crude aflatoxin contained 40.4 per cent aflatoxin B, and 41.7 per cent aflatoxin G₁. The growth rates were 178.51, 175.35 and 164.48 g/wk/chick with corresponding feed to gain ratios of 2.67, 2.63 and 2.87 in groups 1 through 3 respectively. A level of 1.71 ppm aflatoxin in the diet was well tolerated by this broiler strain of chicks.