ABSTRACT
Field observations suggest that coccidiosis is a common cause of death in broiler chicken flocks fed diets containing sufficient amounts of ionophore antibiotics (monensin, narasin, etc.) and contaminated with mycotoxins, particularly with T-2 fusariotoxin. To study this phenomenon, broiler chickens fed diets containing different amounts of T-2 toxin and free from monensin, or containing a preventive dose (100 mg/kg of feed) of monensin, were infected experimentally with coccidian oocysts. In all groups fed a diet containing monensin plus T-2 toxin severe clinical symptoms of coccidiosis (blood-stained faeces etc). occurred. Deaths and retarded growth depended on the toxin dose and were considerable. The body mass gain of chicks fed a diet containing monensin and T-2 toxin but not infected with coccidia was inferior to that of groups fed diets which contained either monensin or T-2 toxin (experiment 2). On the basis of these findings a negative interaction of the two compounds is assumed. This seems to be supported by the results of experiment 3, i. e. the finding that the lethal dose of narasin, a compound closely related to monensin both in chemical structure and mechanism of action, proved to be much lower (LD50 = 102 mg/kg body mass) for chickens fed a diet supplemented with T-2 toxin than for the control chickens (LD50 = 176 mg/kg body mass). The present results suggest that the feeding of diets severely contaminated with T-2 toxin may alter the anticoccidial efficacy of monensin.
