The effect of feeding diets containing deoxynivalenol contaminated corn on channel catfish (Ictalurus punctatus) challenged with Edwardsiella ictaluri. Issue 11 (25th January 2013) - Manning, Bruce B
Abstract Channel catfish were fed practical corn‐soybean meal diets for 10 weeks that contained various weighed amounts of ground, dried field corn contaminated with 20 mg deoxynivalenol (DON) kg−1. Weighed amounts of DON corn were blended with weighed amounts of ground, clean corn that contained no DON (0 mg kg−1) to yield five diets that had 0, 2.5, 5.0, 7.5 and 10.0 mg DON kg−1 of diet. Results show that catfish fed diets that contained DON for 7 weeks did not experience lower weight gains or poorer feed conversion ratios that were significantly (P > 0.05) different from control‐fed fish. Mortality of catfish during the 21‐day post‐challenge period indicate that catfish fed diets containing DON‐contaminated corn that provided at least 5.0 mg DON kg−1 of diet had significantly (P < 0.05) lower mortality than catfish fed the control diet or the diet that provided 2.5 mg DON kg−1 of diet. The presence of DON‐contaminated corn in the experimental diets did not significantly (P > 0.05) alter fish body weight gains and appeared to provide a protective effect for channel catfish challenged with the pathogenic bacterium Edwardsiella ictaluri.