The tolerance of White Leghorn and broiler chicks, and turkey poults to diets that contained deoxynivalenol (vomitoxin)-contaminated wheat.

Three experiments were done to determine the effects of giving White Leghorn chickens, broiler chickens, and turkey poults diets that contained white winter or spring wheat contaminated with 4-deoxynivalenol (DON). Diets that contained .35 and .7 mg DON/kg from winter wheat did not (P greater than .05) influence feed intake, body weight gain, feed/gain ratio, and organ weight/body weight ratios of Leghorn and broiler chickens, and poults when fed between 7 and 21 days in Experiment 1. Dietary DON levels up to 4.6 mg/kg increased the feed intakes (P less than .01) and daily body weight gains (P less than .05) of Leghorn chickens between 7 and 35 days of age in Experiment 2 but had little effect (P greater than .05) on these variables for broiler chickens between 7 and 52 days of age in Experiment 3. Within Experiments 2 and 3, feed/gain ratios and organ weight/body weight ratios were similar among the Leghorn and broiler chickens, respectively. The dressing percent and chilled carcass weights of eviscerated broiler chickens were not affected (P greater than .05) by DON in the diets of Experiment 3. Mortality was low (less than 3.3%) for the three experiments and necropsy examination indicated that the birds died from several causes unrelated to the dietary treatment. There was no evidence of emesis during the experiments or of overt changes in the appearance of the oral cavity, heart, liver, spleen, kidney, proventriculus, gizzard, and intestines of a random sample of birds killed by carbon dioxide asphyxiation and necropsied. Differences occurred between the analyzed and calculated DON contents of the experimental diets; possible reasons for these differences are discussed. The results of these experiments indicate that young chickens and turkey poults can tolerate diets that contain DON up to at least 5 mg/kg from white winter or spring wheat.