Evaluation of Fungal Contamination on Livestock Feed Ingredients of Plants origin Stored for Five Years

The purpose of this experiment was to evaluate the extent of Fungal contamination of livestock feed stuffs of plants origin stored for five years at Plateau State College of Agriculture, Garkawa. The feed ingredients were: wheat offals, cowpea husks, cotton seeds, kidney beans seeds, baobab seeds, bambara nut husks, palm kernel cake, baobab seed meal, rice offals, yam peels, ground nut cake and sweet orange peels. Microbiological quality of these feedstuffs were conducted using standard microbiological technique for food and animal feeding stuffs at Microbiology Unit of Central Diagnostic Laboratory at National Veterinary Research Institute Vom, Plateau State, Nigeria. The study revealed a total of eight fungi spp: Aspergillus niger, Aspergillus fumigatus, Penicillum spp, Rhizopus spp, Mucor spp, Trichophyton rubrum, Aspergillus spp and Aspergillus flavus. From the findings, cowpea husks, cotton seed, kidney beans seed, baobab seed and bambara nut husks were contaminated by Aspergillus niger (28.57%) as the dominant species of fungi followed by: Aspergillus fumigatus (19.05%) (baobab seed, bambara nut husks, blood meal, and baobab seed meal) and baobab seed (Aspergillus niger, Aspergillus fumigatus and Penicillium spp). Wheat offals and palm kernel cake had the highest total fungi counts of 4.0 x 102 cfu/g followed by yam peels, sweet orange peel and bone meal with 3.0 x 102 cfu/g and baobab seed meal had 2.2 x 102 cfu/g. To reduce the growth of mould on livestock feed ingredients stored over long periods of time, regular monitoring of moisture levels of these ingredients should be checked before embarking on storage.