Pesticide Toxicity

Pesticide Toxicity in Poultry:

Each country follows their own methodology. For animal feed, No MRL has been proposed but EC recommends to consider default MRL of 0.01 mg/kg (10 ppb) of pesticide;

However, the MRL for each cereals varies; (Ref.: http://ec.europa.eu/food/plant/pesticides/max_residue_levels/eu_rules/index_en.htm).

Like Mycotoxins pesticides also have severe toxic effects on health of Birds.

Main culprit is maize, through which maximum contamination of pesticide is seen.

Following are some common pesticides and their toxic effects on poultry

1.

Pesticide: Carbofuran

Use: During Storage and transportation of Maize

Impact on Birds: Severe Kidney damage , Liver damage , Yellow colored bile , Sub encapsular haemorrahages in liver , severe mortality up to 30% in acute cases (Gupta 96)

2.

Pesticide: Thiram

Use: Seed Treatment of Maize before sowing

Impact on Birds:

liver enlargement and dysfunction, hepatitis, degenerative changes, and focal
necrosis (Hasegawa et al., 1988; Maita et al. 1991), Clinical signs in thiram poisoning are
anorexia, listless behavior, dyspnea, convulsions, and death due to cardiac arrest (Kaya &
Bilgili, 1998), inhibit egg laying (Lorgue et al., 1996), Thiram-contaminated
poultry feed caused soft egg shells, depressed growth and leg abnormalities in about 1
million birds. Corn was the source of the contamination that previously treated with thiram (Guitart et al., 1996)

3.

Pesticide: Deltamethrin

Use: Insecticide, During maize storage , before sowing also

Impact on Birds:

Severe body weight drop, poor hatchability , residue in the different organs, (Chandra et al 2013 )

4.

Pesticide: Thiamethoxam

Use: Insecticide

Impact on Birds:

Severe liver damage, growth suppression, impacts on hepatic enzymes ( Adejumo et al 2015)

5.

Pesticide: Atrazine

Use: During Storage and transportation of Maize

Impact on Birds:

Reproductive hormones, late maturity, hepatoxicity, (Wilhems 2006)