For its nutritional composition, donkey milk is an excellent alternative to breast milk for infants suffering from cow's milk allergies. Even in donkeys, a passage of aflatoxin from contaminated feed to milk could occur, as reported by many authors in other dairy species, but there are no studies on this topic. This work was aimed at studying the excretion of aflatoxin M1 (AFM1) and M2 (AFM2) in milk after feeding trials with contaminated feed. Six donkeys, at the end of lactation, received a diet with naturally contaminated corn containing 202 and 11 μg.kg −1 of aflatoxin B1 (AFB1) and aflatoxin B2 (AFB2), respectively. Individual milk samples were analyzed for AFM1 and AFM2 for 15 days after the contaminated feed administration. Amounts of AFM1 and AFM2 were detected in the milk. The steady state condition was reached after 6 days. No AFM1 or AFM2 were detected in milk after 28 h from the last contaminated feed administration. The carryover from AFB1 to AFM1 and from AFB2 to AFM2 was found to be 0.02 and 0.31%, respectively. The results obtained in this study are thus a further step toward understanding the possible carryover of aflatoxin in donkey milk.

The aim of this study was to evaluate the milk quality of Massese ewes receiving diets with different forage:concentrate ratios (FC ratio), specially on milk fat globules characteristics and fatty acids composition. The diet is one of the main environmental factors that influence the lipidic content of milk. A trial was carried out on twenty ewes, which had been subdivided into two homogeneous groups and kept indoors at 25 days post partum. The experiment lasted 60 days, from 40 to 100 days post partum and the animals were fed two diets that differed in terms of the FC ratio: 60:40 and 40:60, as fed. The results obtained in this study showed that a greater proportion of forage, compared with an higher percentage of concentrate, led to an increase in the percentage of fat (+8.66%) and to a decrease in the percentage of milk fat globules with a size between 2 and 5 microm (-17.32%). However, the average diameter was not affected. There was also a decrease in the percentages of some medium chain fatty acids (C12:0, C14:0; -14.89% and -4.03 respectively) and an increase in mono and polyunsaturated ones such as trans11-C18:1 (+31.71%), total CLA (+22%), EPA (+18.18%) and DHA (+66.67%). In conclusion, a greater proportion of forage seem to improve the milk fatty acid profile by the increase of some fatty acid identified has being beneficial for human health.

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The faba bean is a legume primarily used in animal feeding as grain and, to a lesser degree, as fodder. As noted, grain, being a good source of amylacea (starch) (45–50% DM) and protein (23–30 CP%DM) of discrete biological value (Verite and Peyraud, 1988), acts as an alternative to soybean which is particularly suitable for organic breeding. Despite this, low productive yields and the presence of thermostable antinutritional factors have reduced the diffusion of this legume especially in feeding non-ruminant species. The objective of the current work was that of investigating the effect of the genotype and conditions (time and place of sowing) on the amount in polyphenols, vicine, convicine and phytates of five varieties of faba bean (Vicia faba var. minor) that have recorded the best protein yields under Umbrian pedoclimatic conditions (Monotti et al., 2004; Mannino, 2003)