Examinando por Autor "Kyeyune, Alex"

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Development and evaluation of activated clay products as mycotoxin adsorbent in livestock feeds.
(Universidad EARTH, 2018-12) Kyeyune, Alex; Mutoni, Shadadi; Singh, B. K.
Molds are the predominant cereal damaging flora whose presence can result into mycotoxins such as aflatoxins, ochratoxins, fumonisins, zearalenone (ZEA) and Deoxynivalenol (DON) that affect animals and humans when they consume mycotoxin contaminated feeds and food due to the diversity of their toxic effects and synergetic properties. Aflatoxins are fungus metabolites produced by Aspergillus flavus and Aspergillus parasitucus. A clay-based product designed to sequestrate aflatoxins from animal feeds was developed, evaluated and compared to Toxi-veto; which is an existing mycotoxin sequestrate in the Costa Rican Market. A quick reader Scan and Thin Layer Chromatography were the methodologies used to evaluate the efficiency of the mycotoxin sequestrates and the clay-based product. A survey was designed to know the number of farmers and other stakeholders especially in animal feed industry in Costa Rica who know about mycotoxins and their impact to the health of the animals and the entire sector. An Aflatoxin pitch contest was organized by Life and sight foundation to fund innovative and effective ideas that better eliminated aflatoxin food. Our response was that, Toxisafe had a unique mechanism that is diverse to ensure maximum elimination of aflatoxin from food. Our product came with the capacity to bind aflatoxin through cation exchange capacity and weakening the cell walls of the fungus that produces aflatoxin. This double mechanism allows room to eliminate a large number of the toxins without compromising the important nutrients in the foods of the efficiency (of the two sequestrates (Clay and Toxi-veto) using the Quick reader scan showed no significant difference on the effect of both products on Aflatoxin. However, the efficiency of both products did not reach the minimum level permitted in feeds (20µg/kg). Different methods used to control mycotoxins by most farmers and feed companies in Costa Rica were reported as shown in the pie- charts. 64 % of the farmers and feed processing businesses use different mycotoxin sequestrates. 16 % separate the contaminated feeds from the clean ones, 12 % mix the contaminated feed with the clean one to reduce the concentration and finally 8 % give no treatments to their mycotoxin contaminated feeds.