Vaishnavi Iyer Aka Aiyer,1,2,

Dan Columbus 2 and Denise Beaulieu 1

1 University of Saskatchewan, 2 Prairie Swine Centre,

Deoxynivalenol (DON), commonly known as vomitoxin, is a mycotoxin produced by the fungi, Fusarium graminearum, which infects all grains, especially wheat and barley. Grains infected with fusarium are typically downgraded to be used as livestock feed. Pigs are highly susceptible to DON contamination, and show reduced feed intake and growth rates. In a previous study at the Prairie Swine Centre, we showed that feeding a diet containing 1.56 ppm DON to nursery pigs reduced ADFI by 5.6% and ADG by 4.9%. CFIA recommends swine diets not to exceed 1 ppm. The best strategy to deal with mycotoxins is to avoid feeding them to swine completely; however, with increased amounts of DON contaminated grain entering the livestock sector, this may not be possible and economical strategies are required to allow for safe feeding practices.

There have been many different strategies employed over the years to reduce the negative effects of feeding mycotoxin contaminated grain to swine, including the use of feed additives such as binders. Certain mycotoxins such as aflatoxin respond well to the presence of binding agents in the diets; however, these agents do not appear to as effective with DON. Specific projects at Prairie Swine Centre have shown that the use of spray dried animal plasma mitigated the negative effects of feeding DON contaminated diets to nursery pigs. Current work explores this further. Specifically we want to determine if the negative effects of DON, and potential remediation by plasma can be explained by the effects on feed intake, specifically examining pigs fed diets containing DON contaminated wheat with and without the addition of spray-dried bovine plasma. We will monitor feed intake carefully and another group of pigs will receive the same diets, but in amounts equal to the intake of those pigs in the first group. Therefore if some of the diets in the first group cause a reduction in feed intake, this intake will be matched by pigs in the second group. The results of this experiment will allow us to separate the feed intake effects of DON from other potential physiological effects. This information will help us to design DON mitigation strategies. •

— Submitted by Ken Engele Prairie Swine Centre