Abstract:
Mycotoxins are virtually ubiquitous in livestock diets, grow on almost every kind of nourishing medium and can have adverse effect on performance of livestock. This study was carried out to evaluate the possible ameliorative effect of a toxin binder on the Performance and developmental processes of rabbits fed dietary Fumonisin B1 (FB1). Fifty six female rabbits of ten weeks old were used for the investigation. Seven experimental diets containing 0.00 mg FB1/kg diet (Treatment A), which served as control, 2.5 mg FB1/kg diet (Treatment B), 5.0 mg FB1/kg diet (Treatment C), 7.5 mg FB1/kg diet (Treatment D), 2.5 mg FB1/kg diet + 1.5g/kg Toxiroak® (Treatment E), 5.0mg FB1/kg diet + 1.5g/kg Toxiroak® (Treatment F) and 7.5mg FB1/kg diet + 1.5g/kg Toxiroak® (Treatment G) were formulated and fed to fifty-six female rabbits arranged in eight rabbits per treatment in a 2x4 Factorial in a Completely Randomised Design. The criteria measured were haematological and serum biochemical parameters, reproductive and growth parameters and pre-weaning performance of kids of female rabbit fed with fumonisin B1 supplemented with Toxiroak®. This study demonstrated that the exposure of pregnant rabbits to diets containing 7.5 mg fumonisin/kg resulted in significantly (P˂0.05) reduced performance but did not alter the haematological and serum biochemical parameters except the AST having 7.5 mg fumonisin/kg without Toxiroak. Results also showed that FB1 significantly (P˂0.05) influenced the pre-weaning parameters of the kids and also on the gestation length and foetal crown rump length (FCRL) in the reproductive performance of the female rabbits. Result also showed that there was no significant (P˂0.05) difference among the treatments for the organ weights except for the heart and the lung. This work has demonstrated that exposure of female rabbits to diet containing above 2.5 g fumonisin may result in significantly reduced growth performance
