SPECIAL STORY 46 FEED & ADDITIVE MAGAZINE March 2023 Mycotoxins pose a risk to humans and animals. Yet they are practically unavoidable in feed rations. With the right toxin management, you can protect dairy cows from performance loss and safeguard your profitability. Toxins are organic poisons secreted by bacteria, plants, or animals, or formed during the decay of bacteria, that can severely affect the health and zootechnical performance of livestock. But which toxins are relevant in practice for dairy cows and therefore demand suitable counterstrategies? MYCOTOXINS AND THE UNDERESTIMATED DANGER FOR DAIRY COWS In the past, when people talked about the importance of mycotoxins in dairy cows, they were mainly concerned about the risk of transferring the aflatoxin metabolite AFM1 into the milk. AFM1 is highly carcinogenic and liver-damaging and is thus especially significant for milk consumers, i.e., humans. Less attention was paid to the harmful effects of mycotoxins on the animals themselves because it was assumed that they are degraded to a large extent by the rumen microbiome and thus detoxified. However, this is true only to a certain extent. In cases of higher input and under certain circumstances leading to a reduced degradation capacity, mycotoxins can have the same harmful effects as in monogastric animals. HIGH RISK OF INPUT DUE TO FEED RECIPES When considering the raw components used in the preparation of dairy cattle rations, it must be noted that almost all of them carry a high risk of mycotoxin contamination. Along with the frequently contaminated energy and protein concentrates, there are the various silages used for ruminants. Corn silage in particular, poses a high risk. The corn may already be infested in the field by Fusarium fungi, which produce mycotoxins even before harvest. These invisible mycotoxins are extremely heat/acid stable, so they survive the subsequent ensiling process undamaged. There is also the possibility of mold fungus contamination by, for example, Aspergillus or Penicillium subspecies after harvesting and during the ensiling process as well as storage in the stack. These, in turn, can produce other mycotoxins such as aflatoxins, ochratoxin A, or roquefortines. Grass silage and green forage can also be contaminated with deoxynivalenol, ergot alkaloids, or other mycotoxins. Overall, there is a risk of a wide variety of different mycotoxins from many different sources. This is aggravated by the high dry matter intake of a dairy cow, which consequently leads to a higher total amount of mycotoxins ingested. REDUCED OR INSUFFICIENT DETOXIFICATION Another possible problem, as mentioned above, is TOXIN MANAGEMENT FOR DAIRY COWS: IS IT REALLY THAT IMPORTANT? Dr. Cornelia Becker R&D Application Manager Biochem
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