The effect of the following phenoxy herbicides: 2,4-D, 2,4,5-T, MCPA, mechlorprop and dichlorprop on the hatchability of hens eggs and the viability of the chicks was investigated both by injecting the herbicides into the yolk and by immersing the eggs in a one or five per cent solution of the herbicides. The five herbicides were found to have rather similar embryotoxic qualities and the injection of about two mg herbicide per 60 g egg decreased the percentage hatch and in some cases the viability of the chicks. Immersion in a one per cent herbicide solution had no effect and immersion in a five per cent herbicide solution had only a moderate effect on the hatchability of the eggs and the viability of the chicks. The embryotoxic effect of 2,7-dichlorodibenzo-p-dioxin was found to be at least 100 times that of the herbicides.In the injection experiments a considerable number of malformations was observed in the dead embryos at the high dose levels.
To facilitate the work of harvesting unequally ripened crops of clover, and to reduce the risk of loss, farmers use, among other things, the sodium salt of monochloracetic acid as an agent to produce early ripening. A few days after spraying with 20 kg per hectare dissolved in 500 1 of water the crop will have withered and dried up, being then ready to be harvested mechanically. Since monochloracetate is used on seed-crops and is decomposed by soil bacteria (JENSEN 1957(JENSEN , 1959(JENSEN , 1960, the chance of its poisoning domestic animals is regarded as negligible. The same has been claimed to apply to game, but in 1958 a report was received of poisoning after spraying that killed a flock of wild geese (Grey Lag Goose, Anser Anser L) . (1958)(1959) reports as fOllOWS :
ROSEN0RN-LEHNOn August 4, 1958, between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m., a white clover field of 18 hectares was sprayed with a solution of 18 kg sodium monochloracetate in 400 1 of water, to which had been added a 1 % (v/v) solution of sulphonated detergent per hectare.About 170 wild geese, which used to spend the nights on a reservation 1 km from the clover field, had for some time been foraging on a neighbourpg field of Poa pratensis. This crop had been harvested and the straw burnt off on the same day as the clover field was sprayed with monochloracetate. The geese therefore sought their food in the newly sprayed clover field. The next few days the geese were not observed, and they were then all found dead on their reservation.Everything pointed to poisoning with monochloracetate. As, however, the geese were in a state of advanced decay and disintegration, this diagnosis could not be confirmed. We therefore thought it appropriate to investigate the toxic effect of monochloracetate on geese.
Material and Methods.As test animals we used young full-grown domestic geese weighing from 4.5 to 5 kg.The birds were exposed to sodium monochloracetate of 97.5 % (w/w) purity, either by
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