Quantification of toxic metals in chicken egg and chicken feed via SOM-artificial neural network

Poultry products such as meat and eggs are rich sources of proteins, vitamins, and minerals. It is a good indicator of healthy food. Keeping in view, the present study is designed to evaluate the prevalence of toxic heavy metals (lead, nickel, cadmium, and chromium) in chicken eggs and feed. For this purpose, five samples of egg and feed were collected from five different commercial markets in Skardu City. Each sample was prepared using the wet digestion method and analyzed using a flame atomic absorption spectrophotometer. The results showed that lead, nickel, and chromium were present in varying amounts in the feed and egg, with nickel being the most concentrated metal, followed by lead and chromium in egg samples, while the feed samples showed the highest concentration of chromium followed by lead and nickel. However, concentrations of selected heavy metals except cadmium were all above the permissible limit of the World Health Organization. The self-organizing map-artificial neural network is employed for the identification of patterns of heavy metals in chicken feed and egg samples. The lower left neurons of the maps showed higher heavy metal concentrations found in samples taken from Bazar, whereas the rest of the samples showed varied concentrations. A comparison of feed and egg concentrations showed that nickel concentration was lower in feed samples than in egg samples. The lead concentration decreased in eggs except in the Krasmathang feed sample. Chromium concentration presented a negative correlation due to the extremely high concentration found in the Bazar feed sample.