Relationships between Physical Characteristics and Aflatoxin Contamination in Maize as a Poultry Feed Ingredient

Abstract

Maize is a major raw material in poultry feed production, and its safety is closely linked to aflatoxin contamination, which poses risks to animal health and feed quality.In practice, aflatoxin contamination is often associated with postharvest handling and storage conditions, where multiple physical quality characteristics of maize may interact simultaneously.This study aimed to examine the structural relationships between the physical quality characteristics of maize and aflatoxin contamination using path analysis within a structural equation modeling framework.A total of 300 composite maize samples collected from incoming feed mill lots were evaluated for moisture content, foreign materials, damaged kernels, broken kernels, moldy kernels, batch temperature, and estimated aflatoxin concentration using Near Infrared Spectroscopy (NIRS).The final model demonstrated good empirical fit (χ² = 1.185, df = 1, P = 0.276; RMSEA = 0.025; CFI = 0.999; TLI = 0.997).Foreign materials were positively associated with moisture content (β = 0.385, P < 0.001) and moldy kernels (β = 0.187, P < 0.001), while moldy kernels showed the strongest positive direct association with aflatoxin contamination (β = 0.471, P < 0.001).Moisture content showed negative partial associations with moldy kernels (β = -0.551,P < 0.001) and aflatoxin (β = -0.326,P < 0.001), which should be interpreted cautiously because the observational cross-sectional data reflect conditions at feed mill reception rather than causal biological effects.Overall, the findings suggest that aflatoxin contamination is associated with interconnected physical quality characteristics rather than a single factor, highlighting the importance of integrated quality monitoring during maize handling and storage.

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