Melamine toxicity in broiler chickens: A review

Fewer than four years ago, melamine was a term known only to chemists although its use as a diuretic was studied 65 years ago. This changed almost overnight in 2007 when the pet food scandal broke out. Later in 2008, the much more serious melamine-adulterated milk powder scandal occurred in China. Ingestion of melamine-adulterated milk and other animal products could lead to fatal renal failure and even death. Melamine is an organic nitrogenous compound used in the production of plastics, dyes, fertilizers, and fabrics. It has an high nitrogen content of 667g/kg, which may correspond to a crude protein (CP) level of 4168.75 g/kg (N x 6.25). Hence, melamine is added intentionally to protein foods such as wheat gluten, corn gluten, rice protein, soya and fishmeal to falsely increase their apparent protein content, which are used for making livestock and poultry feed. The toxic effects of melamine, include nephroliths, chronic nephritis and bladder carcinoma in animals. Feeding of melamine contaminated diets to broiler chicken resulted in mortality and other production losses like reduced weight gain, increased feed conversion ratio (FCR) and tissue residues mainly in muscles of birds.