Effects of Diacetoxyscirpenol and Fusaric Acid on Poults: Individual and Combined Effects of Dietary Diacetoxyscirpenol and Fusaric Acid on Turkey Poult Performance

Turkey poults were randomly placed in batteries and fed one of four dietary treatments: control (C); control plus 4ppm diacetoxyscirpenol (DAS); control plus 300ppm Fusaric Acid (FA); and control plus 4ppm DAS and 300ppm FA (FD). There were 10 poults per pen with 6 replicate pens per treatment. Individual BW, BW gains (BWG) and feed consumption by pen were determined at d6, d12, and d18. Period and cumulative feed to gain were calculated. Mouth lesions were scored for treatments at d18. On d18 poults were euthanized for determination of organ weights and jejunal histomorphometrics. FA had no effect on BW or BWG at any period compared to C. Poults fed FD had reduced BW and BWG compared to C, while poults fed DAS had lower BW than all treatments at every period. Poults fed FA or C had better feed to gain (P<0.05) than poults fed DAS or FD at d6. There were no differences among the treatments at d12 or d18. Poults fed FA had significantly lower relative intestine wt than poults fed the other diets, and significantly higher relative bursa wt at d18 when compared to poults fed DAS or FD. DAS, FA and FD altered intestinal architecture. Poults fed DAS or FD had higher mouth lesion scores than poults fed FA or C, but mouth lesion scores in DAS and FD poults were not different from each other. Dietary DAS resulted in decreased poult performance, while dietary FA had little or no effect. Fusaric acid fed in combination with DAS resulted in some protective effect towards DAS.